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The Elysian plain and the boundaries of Earth where Ocean always 
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Frontispiece 



THE ADVENTURES 
OF ULYSSES 


ADAPTED FROM GEORGE CHAPMAN’S 
TRANSLATION OF THE ODYSSEY 

By CHARLES LAMB 


INTRODUCTION BY 

W. P. TRENT 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH 
SEWANEE, TENN. 


WITH FOURTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS AFTER FLA A MAN 
BY C. £. ATWOOD , AND A MAP 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 

D. C HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

1900 


56406 


)- 1 britt y of Concrroiifi 

' v< - RECKvEO 

OCT 4 1900 

Co^yrifM «ntry 

(D&fcr -v. o~0 

second copy. 

D«-*iv*r«d to 

ORDER DIVISION, 

-Q CI 25 1900 



Copyright, 1900, 

By D. C. HEATH & CO, 



TYPOGRAPHY BY J. 8. CASHING & CO., NORWOOD, MASS. 


INTRODUCTION. 




It would seem hard to find a book better adapted to serve 
young readers as a starting-point for the exploration of imaginative 
literature than Lamb’s Adventures of Ulysses which has long been 
a favorite with readers young and old. 

It brings the child in contact with the Odyssey, — that fountain 
head of romance, perhaps the most fascinating single book in the 
world, and also with Lamb himself, one of the most charming 
of all English prose writers. Its perusal will almost of necessity 
induce a desire for further acquaintance with Homer, whether in 
the original or in the verse translations of Chapman and Pope, 
both English Classics, or in some one of the excellent modern 
prose renderings. 

From the Adventures of Ulysses the young student may be led 
to the Comus of Milton, which is included in the English Classics 
read in most American schools, as well as to the Lotus Eaters 
and Ulysses, two of the most admirable of the late Lord Tenny- 
son’s poems. 

In the present edition the explanatory apparatus has been kept 
within the smallest limits, so as not to interfere with the enjoy- 
ment of the reader. The map will aid him in following the hero 
in his wanderings. The pronouncing vocabulary will teach him 
how to pronounce the unfamiliar names, and the few notes 
appended here and there will explain the words that have fallen 
into disuse. 

The map which shows the wanderings of Ulysses is taken from 
a map specially prepared to show the world as Homer described it. 

iii 


IV 


Introduction. 


The fourteen illustrations in the text are pen drawings by Clara 
E. Atwood, from the designs made by John Flaxman, R.A. (born 
1755, died 1826), the famous English sculptor, to illustrate 
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. These designs were engraved under 
the artist’s own supervision by the distinguished Italian engraver, 
Piroli, and have contributed largely to Flaxman’s fame. 

W. P. TRENT. 

June, 1900. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

The Cicons — The Fruit of the Lotos-tree — Polyphemus and the 
Cyclops — The Kingdom of the Winds, and God .dEolus’s Fatal 
Present — The Lsestrygonian Man-eaters i 

CHAPTER II 

The House of Circe — Men changed into Beasts — The Voyage to Hell 

— The Banquet of the Dead 15 

CHAPTER III 

The Song of the Sirens — Scylla and Charybdis — The Oxen of the Sun 

— The Judgment — The Crew killed by Lightning .... 32 

CHAPTER IV 

The Island of Calypso — Immortality refused 43 

CHAPTER V 

The Tempest — The Sea-bird’s Gift — The Escape by Swimming — 

The Sleep in the Woods 49 

CHAPTER VI 

The Princess Nausicaa — The Washing — The Game with the Ball — 

The Court of Phseacia and King Alcinpus 56 

CHAPTER VII 

The Songs of Demodocus — The Convoy Home — The Mariners trans- 
formed to Stone — The Young Shepherd 65 


v 


VI 


Illustrations. 


CHAPTER VIII 

PAGE 

The Change from a King to a Beggar — Eumseus and the Herdsmen — 

Telemachus 76 

CHAPTER IX 

The Queen’s Suitors — The Battle of the Beggars — The Armor taken 

down — The Meeting with Penelope 92 

CHAPTER X 

The Madness from Above — The Bow of Ulysses — The Slaughter — 

The Conclusion 103 

Note 114 

Index and Brief Explanation of Proper Names . . . .116 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Map to illustrate the Wanderings of Ulysses . . . Frontispiece 

Ulysses offering Wine to Polyphemus 8 

Ulysses at the Table of Circe 19 

Ulysses terrified by the Ghosts 24 

The Sirens 35 

Mercury’s Message to Calypso 45 

Nausicaa throwing the Ball 58 

Ulysses following the Car of Nausicaa ....... 62 

Ulysses weeps at the Song of Demodocus 66 

Telemachus in search of his Father 77 

Ulysses conversing with Eumaeus ........ 80 

Ulysses preparing to fight with Irus 95 

Penelope’s Dream 101 

Ulysses killing the Suitors no 

Penelope and Ulysses . . . . . . . . . .112 


The Adventures of Ulysses 


CHAPTER I. 

The Cicons. — The Fruit of the Lotos-tree. — Polyphemus and 
the Cyclops. — The Kingdom of the Winds, and God tEolus’s 
Fatal Present. — The L^estrygonian Man-Eaters. 

This history tells of the wanderings of Ulysses and his 
followers in their return from Troy, after the destruction 
of that famous city of Asia by the Grecians. 

He was inflamed with a desire of seeing again, after a ten 
years’ absence, his wife and native country, Ithaca. He was 
king of a barren spot, and a poor country in comparison 
of the fruitful plains of Asia, which he was leaving, or 
the wealthy kingdoms which he touched upon in his re- 
turn ; yet, wherever he came, he could never see a soil 
which appeared in his eyes half so sweet or desirable as 
his country earth. This made him refuse the offers of the 
goddess Calypso to stay with her, and partake of her 
immortality in the delightful island ; and this gave him 
strength to break from the enchantments of Circe, the 
daughter of the Sun. 

From Troy, ill winds cast Ulysses and his fleet upon the 
coast of the Cicons, a people hostile to the Grecians. 
Landing his forces, he laid siege to their chief city, Isma- 
rus, which he took, and with it much spoil, and slew many 


2 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


people. But success proved fatal to him ; for his soldiers, 
elated with the spoil, and the good store of provisions 
which they found in that place, fell to eating and drinking, 
forgetful of their safety, till the Cicons, who inhabited the 
coast, had time to assemble their friends and allies from 
the interior ; who, mustering in prodigious force, set upon 
the Grecians, while they negligently revelled and feasted, 
and slew many of them, and recovered the spoil. They, 
dispirited and thinned in their numbers, with difficulty 
made their retreat good to the ships. 

Thence they set sail, sad at heart, yet something cheered 
that with such fearful odds against them they had not all 
been utterly destroyed. A dreadful tempest ensued, which 
for two nights and two days tossed them about, but the 
third day the weather cleared, and they had hopes of a 
favorable gale to carry them to Ithaca; but, as they 
doubled the Cape of Malea, suddenly a north wind arising 
drove them back as far as Cythera. After that, for the 
space of nine days, contrary winds continued to drive 
them in an opposite direction to the point to which they 
were bound ; and the tenth day they put in at a shore 
where a race of men dwell that are sustained by the fruit 
of the lotos-tree. Here Ulysses sent some of his men to 
land for fresh water, who were met by certain of the inhab- 
itants, that gave them some of their country food to eat — 
not with any ill intention towards them, though in the event 
it proved, pernicious ; for, having eaten of this fruit, so 
pleasant it proved to their appetite that they in a minute 
quite forgot all thoughts of home, or of their countrymen, 
or of ever returning back to the ships to give an account 
of what sort of inhabitants dwelt there, but they would 
needs stay and live there among them, and eat of that 
previous food forever; and when Ulysses sent other of his 


3 


The Cyclops. 

men to look for them, and to bring them back by force, 
they strove, and wept, and would not leave their food for 
heaven itself, so much the pleasure of that enchanting 
fruit had bewitched them. But Ulysses caused them to 
be bound hand and foot, and cast under the hatches ; and 
set sail with all possible speed from that baneful coast, 
lest others after them might taste the lotos, which had 
such strange qualities to make men forget their native 
country and the thoughts of home. 

Coasting on all that night by unknown and out-of-the- 
way shores, they came by daybreak to the land where the 
Cyclops dwell, a sort of giant shepherds that neither sow 
nor plough, but the earth untilled produces for them rich 
wheat and barley and grapes ; yet they have neither bread 
nor wine, nor know the arts of cultivation, nor care to 
know them ; for they live each man to himself, without 
laws or government, or anything like a state or kingdom ; 
but their dwellings are in caves, on the steep heads of 
mountains; every man’s household governed by his own 
caprice, or not governed at all ; their wives and children 
as lawless as themselves, none caring for others, but each 
doing as he or she thinks good. 

Ships or boats they have none, nor artificers to make 
them, nor trade or commerce, or wish to visit other shores ; 
yet they have convenient places for harbors and for ship- 
ping. Here Ulysses with a chosen party of twelve followers 
landed, to explore what sort of men dwelt there, whether 
hospitable and friendly to strangers, or altogether wild and 
savage, for as yet no dwellers appeared in sight. 

The first sight of habitation which they came to was a 
giant’s cave rudely fashioned, but of a size which betokened 
the vast proportions of its owners ; the pillars which sup- 

See Tennyson’s famous poem, “The Lotus Eaters.” 


4 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


ported it being the bodies of huge oaks or pines, in the 
natural state of the tree, and all about showed more marks 
of strength than skill in whoever built it. Ulysses, enter- 
ing in, admired the savage contrivances and artless struc- 
ture of the place, and longed to see the tenant of so 
outlandish a mansion ; but well conjecturing that gifts 
would have more avail in extracting courtesy than strength 
would succeed in forcing it, from such a one as he expected 
to find the inhabitant, he resolved to flatter his hospitality 
with a present of Greek wine, of which he had store in 
twelve great vessels, so strong that no one ever drank it 
without an infusion of twenty parts of water to one of wine, 
yet the fragrance of it was even then so delicious that it 
would have vexed a man who smelled it to abstain from 
tasting it ; but whoever tasted it, it was able to raise his 
courage to the height of heroic deeds. Taking with them 
a goat-skin flagon full of this precious liquor, they ventured 
into the recesses of the cave. Here they pleased them- 
selves a whole day with beholding the giant’s kitchen, 
where the flesh of sheep and goats lay strewed ; his dairy, 
where goat-milk stood ranged in troughs and pails; his 
pens, where he kept his live animals ; but those he had 
driven forth to pasture with him when he went out in the 
morning. While they were feasting their eyes with a sight 
of these curiosities, their ears were suddenly deafened with 
a noise like the falling of a house. It was the owner of 
the cave, who had been abroad all day feeding his flock, as 
his custom was, in the mountains, and now drove them 
home in the evening from pasture. He threw down a pile 
of fire-wood, which he had been gathering against supper- 
time, before the mouth of the cave, which occasioned the 
crash they heard. 

The Grecians hid themselves in the remote parts of 


Polyphemus. 


5 


the cave at sight of the uncouth monster. It was Poly- 
phemus, the largest and savagest of the Cyclops, who 
boasted himself to be the son of Neptune. He looked 
more like a mountain crag than a man, and to his brutal 
body he had a brutish mind answerable. He drove his 
flock, all that gave milk, to the interior of the cave, but 
left the rams and the he-goats without. Then, taking up 
a stone so massy that twenty oxen could not have drawn 
it, he placed it at the mouth of the cave, to defend the 
entrance, and sat him down to milk his ewes and his goats ; 
which done, he lastly kindled a fire, and throwing his great 
eye round the cave (for the Cyclops have no more than 
one eye, and that placed in the midst of their forehead), 
by the glimmering light he discerned some of Ulysses’s 
men. 

“ Ho !- guests, what are you ? Merchants or wandering 
thieves ? ” he bellowed out in a voice which took from them 
all power of reply, it was so astounding. 

Only Ulysses summoned resolution to answer, that they 
came neither for plunder nor traffic, but were Grecians 
who had lost their way, returning from Troy; which 
famous city, under the conduct of Agamemnon, the 
renowned son of Atreus, they had sacked, and laid level 
with the ground. Yet now they prostrated themselves 
humbly before his feet, whom they acknowledged to be 
mightier .than they, and besought him that he would 
bestow the rites of hospitality upon them, for that Jove 
was the avenger of wrongs done to strangers, and would 
fiercely resent any injury which they might suffer. 

“ Fool ! ” said the Cyclop, “ to come so far to preach to 
me the fear of the gods. We Cyclops care not for your 
Jove, whom you fable to be nursed by a goat, nor any 
of your blessed ones. We are stronger than they, and 


6 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

dare bid open battle to Jove himself, though you and all 
your fellows of the earth join with him.” 

And he bade them tell him where their ship was in which 
they came, and whether they had any companions. But 
Ulysses, with a wise caution, made answer that they had no 
ship or companions, but were unfortunate men, whom the 
sea, splitting their ship in pieces, had dashed upon his coast, 
and they alone had escaped. He replied nothing, but 
gripping two of the nearest of them, as if they had been 
no more than children, he dashed their brains out against 
the earth, and, shocking to relate, tore in pieces their 
limbs, and devoured them, yet warm and trembling, mak- 
ing a lion’s meal of them, lapping the blood ; for the 
Cyclops are man-eaters, and esteem human flesh to be a 
delicacy far above goat’s or kid’s; though by reason of 
their abhorred customs few men approach their coast, 
except some stragglers, or now and then a shipwrecked 
mariner. At a sight so horrid, Ulysses and his men were 
like distracted people. He, when he had made an end of 
his wicked supper, drained a draught of goat’s milk down 
his prodigious throat, and lay down and slept among his 
goats. Then Ulysses drew his sword, and half resolved to 
thrust it with all his might in at the bosom of the sleeping 
monster ; but wiser thoughts restrained him, else they had 
there without help all perished, for none but Polyphemus 
himself could have removed that mass of stone which he 
had placed to guard the entrance. So they were con- 
strained to abide all that night in fear. 

When day came, the Cyclop awoke, and kindling a fire, 
made his breakfast of two other of his unfortunate pris- 
oners ; then milked his goats as he was accustomed, and 
pushing aside the vast stone, and shutting it again when 
he had done, upon the prisoners, with as much ease as a 


7 


Polyphemus and the Cyclops. 

man opens and shuts a quiver’s lid, he let out his flock, 
and drove them before him with whistlings (as sharp as 
winds in storms) to the mountains. 

Then Ulysses, of whose strength or cunning the Cyclop 
seems to have had as little heed as of an infant’s, being 
left alone with the remnant of his men which the Cyclop 
had not devoured, gave manifest proof how far manly 
wisdom excels brutish force. He chose a stake from 
among the wood which the Cyclop had piled up fof firing, 
in length and thickness like a mast, which he sharpened 
and hardened in the fire ; and selected four men, and in- 
structed them what they should do with this stake, and 
made them perfect in their parts. 

When the evening was come, the Cyclop drove home 
his sheep ; and as fortune directed it, either of purpose, or 
that his memory was overruled by the gods to his hurt (as 
in the issue it proved), he drove the males of his flock, 
contrary to his custom, along with the dams into the pens. 
Then shutting to the stone of the cave, he fell to his hor- 
rible supper. When he had despatched two more of the 
Grecians, Ulysses waxed bold with the contemplation of 
his project, and took a bowl of Greek wine, and merrily 
dared the Cyclop to drink. 

“ Cyclop,” he said, “take a bowl of wine from the hand 
of your guest : it may serve to digest the man’s flesh that 
you have eaten, and show what drink our ship held before 
it went down. All I ask in recompense, if you find it 
good, is to be dismissed in a whole skin. Truly you must 
look to have few visitors, if you observe this new custom 
of eating your guests.” 

The brute took and drank, and vehemently enjoyed the 
taste of wine, which was new to him, and swilled again at 
the flagon, and entreated for more, and prayed Ulysses to 


8 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


tell him his name, that he might bestow a gift upon the 
man who had given him such brave liquor. The Cyclops, 
he said, had grapes, but this rich juice, he swore, was 
simply divine. 



Again Ulysses plied him with the wine, and the fool 
drank it as fast as he poured it out, and again he asked the 
name of his benefactor, which Ulysses, cunningly dissem- 
bling said, “ My name is Noman : my kindred and friends 
in my own country call me Noman.” “Then,” said the 
Cyclop, “this is the kindness I will show thee, Noman: 
I will eat thee last of all thy friends.” He had scarce 
expressed his savage kindness, when the fumes of the 
strong wine overcame him, and he reeled down upon the 
floor and sank into a dead sleep. 

Ulysses watched his time, while the monster lay insensi- 
ble ; and, heartening up his men, they placed the sharp end 



The Suffering of Polyphemus. 


9 


of the stake in the fire till it was heated red-hot ; and some 
god gave them a courage beyond that which they were 
used to have, and the four men with difficulty bored the 
sharp end of the huge stake, which they had heated red- 
hot, right into the eye of the drunken cannibal ; and Ulys- 
ses helped to thrust it in with all his might still further 
and further, with effort, as men bore with an auger, till 
the scalded blood gushed out, and the eyeball smoked, 
and the strings of the eye cracked as the burning rafter 
broke in it, and the eye hissed as hot iron hisses when it 
is plunged into water. 

He, waking, roared with the pain so loud that all the 
cavern broke into claps like thunder. They fled, and 
dispersed into corners. He plucked the burning stake 
from his eye, and hurled the wood madly about the cave. 
Then he cried out with a mighty voice for his brethren the 
Cyclops, that dwelt hard by in caverns upon hills. They, 
hearing the terrible shout, came flocking from all parts to 
inquire what ailed Polyphemus, and what cause he had 
for making such horrid clamors in the night-time to break 
their sleeps ; if his fright proceeded from any mortal ; if 
strength or craft had given him his death-blow. He made 
answer from within, that Noman had hurt him, Noman 
had killed him, Noman was with him in the cave. 

They replied, “ If no man has hurt thee, and no man is 
with thee, then thou art alone ; and the evil that afflicts 
thee is from the hand of heaven, which none can resist or 
help.” So they left him, and went their way, thinking that 
some disease troubled him. He, blind, and ready to split 
with the anguish of the pain, went groaning up and down 
in the dark, to find the door-way ; which when he found, he 
removed the stone, and sat in the threshold, feeling if he 
could lay hold on any man going out with the sheep, which 


io The Adventures of Ulysses. 

(the day now breaking) were beginning to issue forth to 
their accustomed pastures. 

But Ulysses, whose first artifice in giving himself that 
ambiguous name had succeeded so well with the Cyclop, 
was not of a wit so gross to be caught by that palpable 
device. But casting about in his mind all the ways which 
he could contrive for escape (no less than all their lives 
depending on the success), at last he thought of this expe- 
dient. He made knots of the osier twigs upon which the 
Cyclop commonly slept, with which he tied the fattest 
and fleeciest of the rams together, three in a rank ; and 
under the middle ram he tied a man, and himself last, 
wrapping himself fast with both his hands in the rich 
wool of one, the fairest of the flock. 

And now the sheep began to issue forth very fast ; the 
males went first, the females, unmilked, stood by, bleating 
and requiring the hand of their shepherd in vain to milk 
them, their full bags sore with being unemptied, but he 
much sorer with the loss of sight. Still, as the males passed, 
he felt the backs of those fleecy fools, never dreaming 
that they carried his enemies under them ; so they passed 
on till the last ram came loaded with his wool and Ulysses 
together. He stopped that ram and felt him, and had his 
hand once in the hair of Ulysses, yet knew it not ; and he 
chid the ram for being last, and spoke to it as if it under- 
stood him, and asked it whether it did not wish that its 
master had his eye again, which that abominable Noman 
with his execrable rout had put out, when they had got him 
down with wine ; and he willed the ram to tell him where- 
abouts in the cave his enemy lurked, that he might dash 
his brains and strew them about, to ease his heart of that 
tormenting revenge which rankled in it. After a deal of 
such foolish talk to the beast, he let it go. 


Ulysses Leaves the Island. 1 1 

When Ulysses found himself free, he let go his hold, 
and assisted in disengaging his friends. The rams which 
had befriended them they carried off with them to the 
ships, where their companions with tears in their eyes 
received them, as men escaped from death. They plied 
their oars, and set their sails, and when they were got as 
far off from shore as a voice could reach, Ulysses cried 
out to the Cyclop : “ Cyclop, thou shouldst not have so 
much abused thy monstrous strength as to devour thy 
guests. Jove by my hand sends thee requital to pay thy 
savage inhumanity.” 

The Cyclop heard, and came forth enraged, and in his 
anger he plucked a fragment of a rock, and threw it with 
blind fury at the ships. It narrowly escaped lighting 
upon the bark in which Ulysses sat, but with the fall it 
raised so fierce an ebb as bore back the ship till it almost 
touched the shore. 

“ Cyclop,” said Ulysses, “ if any ask thee who imposed 
on thee that unsightly blemish in thine eye, say it was 
Ulysses, son of Laertes : the king of Ithaca am I called, 
the waster of cities.” Then they crowded sail, and beat 
the old sea, and forth they went with a forward gale ; sad 
for fore-past losses, yet glad to have escaped at any rate ; 
till they came to the isle where Aeolus reigned, who is god 
of the winds. 

Here Ulysses and his men were courteously received by 
the monarch, who showed him his twelve children which 
have rule over the twelve winds. A month they stayed 
and feasted with him, and at the end of the month he dis- 
missed them with many presents, and gave to Ulysses at 
parting an ox’s hide, in which were enclosed all the winds : 
only he left aboard the western wind, to play upon their 
sails and waft them gently home to Ithaca. This bag, 


12 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

bound in a glittering silver band so close that no breath 
could escape, Ulysses hung up at the mast. His com- 
panions did not know its contents, but guessed that the 
monarch had given to him some treasures of gold or 
silver. 

Nine days they sailed smoothly, favored by the western 
wind, and by the tenth they approached so nigh as to 
discern lights kindled on the shores of their country earth : 
when, by ill-fortune, Ulysses, overcome with fatigue of 
watching the helm, fell asleep. The mariners seized the 
opportunity, and one of them said to the rest, “ A fine time 
has this leader of ours ; wherever he goes he is sure of 
presents, when we come away empty-handed ; and see what 
king AloIus has given him, store no doubt of gold and 
silver.” 

A word was enough to those covetous wretches, who, 
quick as thought, untied the bag, and, instead of gold, 
out rushed with mighty noise all the winds. Ulysses with 
the noise awoke and saw their mistake, but too late ; for 
the ship was driving with all the winds back far from 
Ithaca, far as to the island of AloIus from which they had 
parted, in one hour measuring back what in nine days 
they had scarcely tracked, and in sight of home, too ! Up 
he flew amazed, and, raving, doubted whether he should 
not fling himself into the sea for grief of his bitter disap- 
pointment. At last he hid himself under the hatches for 
shame. And scarce could he be prevailed upon, when he 
was told he was arrived again in the harbor of king Aiolus, 
to go himself or send to that monarch for a second succor ; 
so much the disgrace of having misused his royal bounty 
(though it was the crime of his followers, and not his own) 
weighed upon him ; and when at last he went, and took a 
herald with him, and came where the god sat on his throne, 


God bolus’s Fatal Present. 13 

feasting with his children, he would not thrust in among 
them at their meat, but set himself down like one unworthy 
in the threshold. 

Indignation seized ^Eolus to behold him in that manner 
returned ; and he said, “ Ulysses, what has brought you 
back ? Are you so soon tired of your country ? or did not 
our present please you ? We thought we had given you a 
kingly passport.” Ulysses made answer : “ My men have 
done this ill mischief to me; they did it while I slept.” 
“ Wretch ! ” said ^Eolus, “ avaunt, and quit our shores ! it 
fits not us to convoy men whom the gods hate, and will 
have perish.” 

Forth they sailed, but with far different hopes than 
when they left the same harbor the first time, with all the 
winds confined, only the west wind suffered to play upon 
their sails to waft them in gentle murmurs to Ithaca. 
They were now the sport of every gale that blew, and 
despaired of ever seeing home more. Now those covetous 
mariners were cured of their surfeit for gold, and would 
not have touched it if it had lain in untold heaps before 
them. 

Six days and nights they drove along, and on the 
seventh day they put into Lamos, a port of the Lsestry- 
•gonians. So spacious this harbor was that it held with 
ease all their fleet, which rode at anchor, safe from any 
storms, all but the ship in which Ulysses was embarked. 
He, as if prophetic of the mischance which followed, kept 
still without the harbor, making fast his bark to a rock at 
the land’s point, which he climbed with purpose to survey 
the country. He saw a city with smoke ascending from the 
roofs, but neither ploughs going, nor oxen yoked, nor 
any sign of agricultural works. Making choice of two 
men, he sent them to the city to explore what sort of 


14 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

inhabitants dwelt there. His messengers had not gone far 
before they met a damsel, of stature surpassing human, 
who was coming to draw water from a spring. They 
asked her who dwelt in that land. She made no reply, 
but led them in silence to her father’s palace. He was a 
monarch, and named Antiphas. He and all his people 
were giants. When they entered the palace, a woman, 
the mother of the damsel, but far taller than she, rushed 
abroad and called for Antiphas. He came, and snatching 
up one of the two men, made as if he would devour 
him. The other fled. Antiphas raised a mighty shout, 
and instantly, this way and that, multitudes of gigantic 
people issued out at the gates, and, making for the harbor, 
tore up huge pieces of the rocks and flung them at the 
ships which lay there, all which they utterly overwhelmed 
and sank ; and the unfortunate bodies of men which 
floated, and which the sea did not devour, these cannibals 
thrust through with harpoons, like fishes, and bore them 
off to their dire feast. 

Ulysses, with his single bark that had never entered the 
harbor, escaped ; that bark which was now the only vessel 
left of all the gallant navy that had set sail with him from 
Troy. He pushed off from the shore, cheering the sad 
remnant of his men, whom horror at the sight of their 
countrymen’s fate had almost turned to marble. 


CHAPTER II. 


The House of Circe. — Men changed into Beasts. — The Voy- 
age to Hell. — The Banquet of the Dead. 

On went the single ship till it came to the Island of 
JEsea, where Circe, the dreadful daughter of the Sun, 
dwelt. She was deeply skilled in magic, a haughty 
beauty, and had hair like the Sun. The Sun was her 
father, and Perse, daughter to Oceanus, her mother. 

Here a dispute arose among Ulysses’s men, which of 
them should go ashore and explore the country ; for there 
was a necessity that some should go to procure water and 
provisions, their stock of both being nigh spent ; but their 
hearts failed them when they called to mind the shocking 
fate of their fellows whom the Laestrygonians had eaten, 
and those which the foul Cyclop Polyphemus had crushed 
between his jaws ; which moved them so tenderly in the 
recollection that they wept. 

But tears never yet supplied any man’s wants ; this 
Ulysses knew full well, and dividing his men (all that were 
left) into two companies, at the head of one of which was 
himself, and at the head of the other Eurylochus, a man 
of tried courage, he cast lots which of them should go up 
into the country ; and the lot fell upon Eurylochus and his 
company, two and twenty in number, who took their leave, 
with tears, of Ulysses and his men that stayed, whose eyes 
wore the same wet badges of weak humanity ; for they 
surely thought never to see these their companions again, 
but that on every coast where they should come, they 
should find nothing but savages and cannibals. 

15 


1 6 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

Eurylochus and his party proceeded up the country, 
till in' a dale they descried the house of Circe, built of 
bright stone, by the roadside. Before her gate lay many 
beasts, as wolves, lions, leopards, which, by her art, of 
wild, she had rendered tame. These arose when they 
saw strangers, and ramped upon their hinder paws, and 
fawned upon Eurylochus and his men, who dreaded the 
effects of such monstrous kindness ; and staying at the 
gate they heard the enchantress within, sitting at her 
loom, singing such strains as suspended all mortal facul- 
ties, while she wove a web, subtile and glorious, and of 
texture inimitable on earth, as all the housewiferies of the 
deities are. Strains so ravishingly sweet provoked even 
the sagest and prudentest heads among the party to knock 
and call at the gate. The shining gate the enchantress 
opened, and bade them come in and feast. 

They unwise followed, all but Eurylochus, who stayed 
without the gate, suspicious that some train was laid for 
them. Being entered, she placed them in chairs of state, 
and set before them meal and honey and Smyrna wine, 
but mixed with baneful drugs of powerful enchantment. 
When they had eaten of these, and drunk of her cup, she 
touched them with her charming-rod, and straight they 
were transformed into swine, having the bodies of swine, 
the bristles and snout and grunting noise of that animal ; 
only they still retained the minds of men, which made 
them the more to lament their brutish transformation. 
Having changed them, she shut them up in her sty with 
many more whom her wicked sorceries had formerly 
changed, and gave them swine’s food — mast and acorns 
and chestnuts — to eat. 

Eurylochus, who beheld nothing of these sad changes 

Mast : beechnuts. 


Men Changed Into Beasts. 17 

from where he was stationed without the gate, only in- 
stead of his companions that entered (who he thought had 
all vanished by witchcraft) beheld a herd of swine, hurried 
back to the ship, to give an account of what he had seen ; 
but so frighted and perplexed, that he could give no dis- 
tinct report of anything ; only he remembered a palace 
and a woman singing at her work, and gates guarded by 
lions. But his companions, he said, were all vanished. 

Then Ulysses, suspecting some foul witchcraft, snatched 
his sword and his bow, and commanded Eurylochus 
instantly to lead him to the place. But Eurylochus fell 
down, and embracing his knees, besought him by the 
name of a man whom the gods had in their protection, 
not to expose his safety, and the safety of them all, to 
certain destruction. 

“ Do thou then stay, Eurylochus,” answered Ulysses : 
“eat thou and drink in the ship in safety, while I go 
alone upon this adventure : necessity, from whose law is 
no appeal, compels me.” 

So saying, he quitted the ship and went on shore, accom- 
panied by none ; none had the hardihood to offer to 
partake that perilous adventure with him, so much they 
dreaded the enchantments of the witch. Singly he pur- 
sued his journey till he came to the shining gates which 
stood before her mansion ; but when he essayed to put his 
foot over her threshold, he was suddenly stopped by the 
apparition of a young man, bearing a golden rod in his 
hand, who was the god Mercury. He held Ulysses by the 
wrist, to stay his entrance ; and “ Whither wouldst thou 
go,” he said, “ O thou most erring of the sons of men ? 
knowest thou not that this is the house of great Circe, 
where she keeps thy friends in a loathsome sty, changed 
from the fair forms of men into the detestable and ugly 


c 


1 8 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

shapes of swine ? Art thou prepared to share their fate, 
from which nothing can ransom thee ? ” 

But neither his words nor his coming from heaven could 
stop the daring foot of Ulysses, whom compassion for the 
misfortune of his friends had rendered careless of dan- 
ger : which when the god perceived, he had pity to see 
valor so misplaced, and gave him the flower of the herb 
moly, which is sovereign against enchantments. The 
moly is a small unsightly root, its virtues but little known 
and in low estimation ; the dull shepherd treads on it every 
day with his clouted shoes ; but it bears a small white 
flower, which is medicinal against charms, blights, mildews, 
and damps. ‘‘Take this in thy hand,” said Mercury, 
“ and with it boldly enter her gates ; and when she shall 
strike thee with her rod, thinking to change thee, as she 
changed thy friends, boldly rush in upon her with thy 
sword, and extort from her the dreadful oath of the gods, 
that she will use no enchantments against thee ; then force 
her to restore thy abused companions.” He gave Ulysses 
the little white flower, and instructing him how to use it, 
vanished. 

When the god was departed, Ulysses with loud knock- 
ings beat at the gate of the palace. The shining gates 
were opened, as before, and great Circe with hospitable 
cheer invited in her guest. She placed him on a throne 
with more distinction than she had used to his fellows ; 
she mingled wine in a costly bowl, and he drank of it, 
mixed with those poisonous drugs. When he had drunk, 
she struck him with her charming-rod, and “To your 
sty ! ” she cried ; “ out, swine ! mingle with your com- 
panions ! ” But those powerful words were not proof 
against the preservative which Mercury had given to 

Clouted, shoes : shoes fitted with nails. Cf Milton’s Comus, 1. 630, seq. 


Ulysses at the Table of Circe. 


*9 


Ulysses ; he remained unchanged, and, as the god had 
directed him, boldly charged the witch with his sword, as 
if he meant to take her life ; which when she saw, and per- 
ceived that her charms were weak against the antidote 
which Ulysses bore about him, she cried out and bent her 
knees beneath his sword, embracing his, and said, “ Who 
or what manner of man art thou ? Never drank any man 
before thee of this cup but he repented it in some brute’s 



Ulysses at the Table of Circe. 


form. Thy shape remains unaltered as thy mind. Thou 
canst be none other than Ulysses, renowned above all the 
world for wisdom, whom the Fates have long since decreed 
that I must love. This haughty bosom bends to thee. 
O Ithacan, a goddess woos thee.” 

“ O Circe,” he replied, “ how canst thou treat of love 
or marriage with one whose friends thou hast turned into 
beasts ? and now offerest him thy hand in wedlock, only 
that thou mightest have him in thy power, to live the life 
of a beast with thee, naked, effeminate, subject to thy will, 


20 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


perhaps to be advanced in time to the honor of a place in 
thy sty. What pleasure canst thou promise which may 
tempt the soul of a reasonable man, — thy meats, spiced 
with poison ; or thy wines, drugged with death ? Thou 
must swear to me that thou wilt never attempt against 
me the treasons which thou hast practised upon my 
friends.” 

The enchantress, won by the terror of his threats, or 
by the violence of that new love which she felt kindling 
in her veins for him, swore by Styx, the great oath of the 
gods, that she meditated no injury to him. Then Ulysses 
made show of gentler treatment, which gave her hopes of 
inspiring him with a passion equal to that which she felt. 
She called her handmaids, four that served her in chief, 
who were daughters to her silver fountains, to her sacred 
rivers, and to her consecrated woods, to deck her apart- 
ments, to spread rich carpets, and set out her silver tables 
with dishes of the purest gold, and meat as precious as 
that which the gods eat, to entertain her guest. One 
brought water to wash his feet; and one brought wine 
to chase away, with a refreshing sweetness, the sorrows 
that had come of late so thick upon him, and hurt his 
t noble mind. They strewed perfumes on his head; and, 
after he had bathed in a bath of the choicest aromatics, 
they brought him rich and costly apparel to put on. 

Then he was conducted to a throne of massy silver, and 
a regale, fit for Jove when he banquets, was placed before 
him. But the feast which Ulysses desired was to see his 
friends (the partners of his voyage) once more in the 
shapes of men ; and the food which could give him nour- 
ishment must be taken in at his eyes. Because he missed 
this sight, he sat melancholy and thoughtful, and would 

Regale : repast. 


21 


Circe Breaks the Spell. 

taste of none of the rich delicacies placed before him. 
Which when Circe noted, she easily divined the cause of 
his sadness, and leaving the seat in which she sat throned, 
went to her sty, and let abroad his men, who came in like 
swine, and filled the ample hall, where Ulysses sat, with 
gruntings. Hardly had he time to let his sad eye run 
over their altered forms and brutal metamorphosis, when, 
with an ointment which she smeared over them, suddenly 
their bristles fell off, and they started up in their own 
shapes, men as before. They knew their leader again, 
and clung about him, with joy of their late restoration, 
and some shame for their late change ; and wept so loud, 
blubbering out their joy in broken accents, that the palace 
was filled with a sound of pleasing mourning; and the 
witch herself, great Circe, was not unmoved at the sight. 

To make her atonement complete, she sent for the rem- 
nant of Ulysses’s men, who stayed behind at the ship, giv- 
ing up their great commander for lost; who, when they 
came, and saw him again alive, circled with their fellows, 
no expression can tell what joy they felt; they even cried 
out with rapture, and to have seen their frantic expressions 
of mirth a man might have supposed that they were just 
in sight of their country earth, the cliffs of rocky Ithaca. 
Only Eurylochus would hardly be persuaded to enter that 
palace of wonders, for he remembered with a kind of hor- 
ror how his companions had vanished from his sight. 

Then great Circe spake, and gave order that there 
should be no more sadness among them, nor remember- 
ing of past sufferings. For as yet they fared like men 
that are exiles from their country ; and if a gleam of mirth 
shot among them, it was suddenly quenched with the 
thought of their helpless apd homeless condition. Her 
kind persuasions wrought upon Ulysses and the rest, that 


22 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


they spent twelve months in all manner of delight with 
her in her palace. For Circe was a powerful magician, 
and could command the moon from her sphere, or unroot 
the solid oak from its place to make it dance for their 
diversion ; and by the help of her illusions she could 
vary the taste of pleasures, and contrive delights, recrea- 
tions, and jolly pastimes, to “fetch the day about from 
sun to sun, and rock the tedious year as in a delightful 
dream.” 

At length Ulysses awoke from the trance of the facul- 
ties into which her charms had thrown him, and the 
thought of home returned with tenfold vigor to goad 
and sting him ; that home where he had left his virtuous 
wife Penelope, and his young son Telemachus. 

One day, when Circe had been lavish of her caresses, 
and was in her kindest humor, he moved to her subtly, 
and as it were afar off, the question of his home-return ; 
to which she answered firmly, “ O Ulysses, it is not in 
my power to detain one whom the gods have destined 
to further trials. But leaving me, before you pursue 
your journey home, you must visit the house of Hades, 
or Death, to consult the shade of Tiresias, the Theban 
prophet ; to whom alone, of all the dead, Proserpine, 
queen of hell, has committed the secret of future events : 
it is he that must inform you whether you shall ever see 
again your wife and country.” 

“O Circe,” he cried, “that is impossible: who shall 
steer my course to Pluto’s kingdom ? Never ship had 
strength to make that voyage.” “ Seek no guide,” she 
replied ; “ but raise you your mast, and hoist your white 
sails, and sit in your ship in peace : the north wind shall 
waft you through the seas, till you shall cross the expanse 
of the ocean and come to where grow the poplar groves 


The Voyage to Hades. 23 

and willows pale of Proserpine ; where Pyriphlegethon 
and Cocytus and Acheron mingle their waves. Cocytus 
is an arm of Styx, the forgetful river. Here dig a pit, 
and make it a cubit broad and a cubit long ; and pour in 
milk and honey and wine, and the blood of a ram, and 
the blood of a black ewe ; and turn away thy face while 
thou pourest in, and the dead shall come flocking to taste 
the, milk and the blood: but suffer none to approach thy 
offering till thou hast inquired of Tiresias all which thou 
wishest to know.” 

He did as great Circe had appointed. He raised his 
mast, and hoisted his white sails, and sat in his ship in 
peace. The north wind wafted him through the seas till 
he crossed the ocean, and came to the sacred woods of 
Proserpine. He stood at the confluence of the three 
floods, and digged a pit, as she had given directions, and 
poured in his offering, — the blood of a ram, and the blood 
of a black ewe, milk and honey and wine; and the dead 
came to his banquet, — aged men, and women, and youths, 
and children who died in infancy. But none of them 
would he suffer to approach and dip their thin lips in the 
offering, till Tiresias was served, — not though his own 
mother was among the number, whom now for the first 
time he knew to be dead ; for he had left her living when 
he went to Troy; and she had died since his departure, 
and the tidings never reached him. Though it irked his 
soul to use constraint upon her, yet, in compliance with 
the injunction of great Circe, he forced her to retire along 
with the other ghosts. 

Then Tiresias, who bore a golden sceptre, came and 
lapped of the offering ; and immediately he knew Ulysses, 
and began to prophesy : he denounced woe to Ulysses , — 
woe , woe, and many sufferings , — through the anger of 


24 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


Neptune for the putting-out of the eye of the sea-god's son. 
Yet there was safety after suffering , if they could abstain 
from slaughtering the oxen of the Sun after they landed m 
the Triangular Island. For Ulysses , the gods had destined 
him from a king to become a beggar , and to perish by his 
own guests , unless he slew those who knew him not. 

This prophecy, ambiguously delivered, was all that 
Tiresias was empowered to unfold, or else there was no 



Ulysses terrified by the Ghosts. 


longer place for him ; for now the souls of the other dead 
came flocking in such numbers, tumultuously demanding 
the blood, that freezing horror seized the limbs of the 
living Ulysses, to see so many, and all dead, and he the 
only one alive in that region. Now his mother came and 
lapped the blood, without restraint from her son, and 
now she knew him to be her son, and inquired of him 
why he had come alive to their comfortless habitations. 
And she said that affliction for Ulysses’s long absence had 
preyed upon her spirits, and brought her to the grave. 



Ulysses Among the Ghosts. 


2 5 


Ulysses’s soul melted at her moving narration ; and for- 
getting the state of the dead, and that the airy texture 
of disembodied spirits does not admit of the embraces of 
flesh and blood, he threw his arms about her to clasp her : 
the poor ghost melted from his embrace, and, looking 
mournfully upon him, vanished away. 

Then saw he other women : Tyro, who when she lived 
was wife of Neptune, and mother of Pelias and Neleus ; 
Antiope, who bore two like sons to Jove, Amphion and 
Zethus, founders of Thebes ; Alcmena, the mother of 
Hercules, with her fair daughter, afterwards her daughter- 
in-law, Megara. There also Ulysses saw Jocasta, the 
unfortunate mother and wife of CEdipus ; who, ignorant 
of kin, wedded with her son, and when she discovered the 
unnatural alliance, for shame and grief hanged herself. 
He continued to drag a wretched life above the earth, 
haunted by the dreadful Furies. There was Leda, the 
wife of Tyndarus, the mother of the beautiful Helen, and 
of the two brave brothers, Castor and Pollux, who obtained 
this grace from Jove, that, being dead, they should enjoy 
life alternately, living in pleasant places under the earth. 
For Pollux had prayed that his brother Castor, who was 
subject to death, as the son of Tyndarus, should partake 
of his own immortality, which he derived from an immortal 
sire. This the Fates denied; therefore Pollux was per- 
mitted to divide his immortality with his brother Castor, 
dying and living alternately. 

There was Iphimedeia, who bore two sons to Neptune 
that were giants, Otus and Ephialtes : Earth in her prodi- 
gality never nourished bodies to such portentous size and 
beauty as these two children were of, except Orion. At 
nine years old they had imaginations of climbing to heaven 
to see what the gods were doing ; they thought to make 


26 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


stairs of mountains, and were for piling Ossa upon Olym- 
pus, and setting Pelion upon that ; and had perhaps per- 
formed it, if they had lived till they were striplings ; but 
they were cut off by death in the infancy of their ambitious 
project. Phaedra was there, and Procris, and Ariadne, 
mournful for Theseus’s desertion, and Maera, and Clymene, 
and Eryphile, who preferred gold before wedlock faith. 

But now came a mournful ghost, that late was Agamem- 
non, son of Atreus, the mighty leader of all the host of 
Greece and their confederate kings that warred against 
Troy. He came with the rest to sip a little of the blood 
at that uncomfortable banquet. Ulysses was moved with 
compassion to see him among them, and asked •him what 
untimely fate had brought him there ; if storms had over- 
whelmed him coming from Troy, or if he had perished in 
some mutiny by his own soldiers at a division of the prey. 

“ By none of these,” he replied, “ did I come to my 
death ; but slain at a banquet to which I was invited by 
^Egisthus after my return home. He conspiring with my 
adulterous wife, they laid a scheme for my destruction, 
training me forth to a banquet as an ox goes to the slaugh- 
ter ; and, there surrounding me, they slew me with all my 
friends about me. 

“ Clytemnestra, my wicked wife, forgetting the vows 
which she swore to me in wedlock, would not lend a hand 
to close my eyes in death. But nothing is so heaped with 
impieties as such a woman, who would kill her spouse that 
married her a maid. When I brought her home to my 
house a bride, I hoped in my heart that she would be lov- 
ing to me and to my children. Now her black treacheries 
have cast a foul aspersion on her whole sex. Blessed 
husbands will have their loving wives in suspicion for her 
bad deeds.’' 


The Banquet of the Dead. 


27 


“Alas! ” said Ulysses, “there seems to be a fatality in 
your royal house of Atreus, and that they are hated of Jove 
for their wives. For Helen’s sake, your brother Menelaus’s 
wife, what multitudes fell in the wars of Troy ! ” 

Agamemnon replied, “ For this cause be not thou more 
kind than wise to any woman. Let not thy words express 
to her at any time all that is in thy mind, keep still some 
secrets to thyself. But thou by any bloody contrivances of 
thy wife never needst fear to fall. Exceeding wise she is,- 
and to her wisdom she has a goodness as eminent; Ica- 
rius’s daughter, Penelope the chaste : we left her a young 
bride when we parted from our wives to go to the wars, 
her first child at her breast, the young Telemachus, whom 
you shall see grown up to manhood on your return, and 
he shall greet his father with befitting welcomes. My 
Orestes, my dear son, I shall never see again. His mother 
has deprived his father of the sight of him, and perhaps 
will slay him as she slew his sire. But what says fame ? 
is my son yet alive ? lives he in Orchomen, or in Pylus, or 
is he resident in Sparta, in his uncle’s court? As yet, I 
see, divine Orestes is not here with me.” 

To this Ulysses replied that he had received no certain 
tidings where Orestes abode, only some uncertain rumors 
which he could not report for truth. 

While they held this sad conference, with kind tears 
striving to render unkind fortunes more palatable, the 
soul of great Achilles joined them. “What desperate 
adventure has brought Ulysses to these regions,” said 
Achilles ; “ to see the end of dead men, and their foolish 
shades ? ” 

Ulysses answered him that he had come to consult 
Tiresias respecting his voyage home. “ But thou, O son 
of Thetis,” said he, “ why dost thou disparage the state of 


28 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


the dead ? seeing that as alive thou didst surpass all men 
in glory, thou must needs retain thy pre-eminence here 
below : so great Achilles triumphs over death.” 

But Achilles made reply that he had much rather be a 
peasant-slave upon the earth than reign over all the dead. 
So much did the inactivity and slothful condition of that 
state displease his unquenchable and restless spirit. Only 
he inquired of Ulysses if his father Peleus were living, and 
how his son Neoptolemus conducted himself. 

Of Peleus Ulysses could tell him nothing; but of Neop- 
tolemus he thus bore witness : “ From Scyros I convoyed 
your son by sea to the Greeks : where I can speak of him, 
for I knew him. He was chief in council, and in the field. 
When any question was proposed, so quick was his conceit 
in the forward apprehension of any case, that he ever 
spoke first, and was heard with more attention than the 
older heads. Only myself and aged Nestor could compare 
with him in giving advice. In battle I cannot speak his 
praise, unless I could count all that fell by his sword. I 
will only mention one instance of his manhood. When 
we sat hid in the belly of the wooden horse, in the ambush 
which deceived the Trojans to their destruction, I, who had 
the management of that stratagem, still shifted my place 
from side to side to note the behavior of our men. In 
some I marked their hearts trembling, through all the pains 
which they took to appear valiant ; and in others tears, that 
in spite of manly courage would gush forth. And to say 
truth, it was an adventure of high enterprise, and as peril- 
ous a stake as was ever played in war’s game. But in 
him I could not observe the least sign of weakness; no 
tears nor tremblings, but his hand still on his good sword, 
and ever urging me to set open the machine and let us 
out before the time was come for doing it ; and when we 


The Banquet of the Dead. 29 

sallied out he was still first in that fierce destruction and 
bloody midnight desolation of king Priam’s city.” 

This made the soul of Achilles to tread a swifter pace, 
with high-raised feet, as he vanished away, for the joy 
which he took in his son being applauded by Ulysses. 

A sad shade stalked by, which Ulysses knew to be the 
ghost of Ajax, his opponent, when living, in that famous 
dispute about the right of succeeding to the arms of the 
deceased Achilles. They being adjudged by the Greeks 
to Ulysses, as the prize of wisdom above bodily strength, 
the noble Ajax in despite went mad, and slew himself. 
The sight of his rival turned to a shade by his dispute so 
subdued the passion of emulation in Ulysses that for his 
sake he wished that judgment in that controversy had 
been given against himself, rather than so illustrious a 
chief should have perished for the desire of those arms 
which his prowess (second only to Achilles in fight) so 
eminently had deserved. “Ajax,” he cried, “all the 
Greeks mourn for thee as much as they lamented for 
Achilles. Let not thy wrath burn forever, great son of 
Telamon. Ulysses seeks peace with thee, and will make 
any atonement to thee that can appease thy hurt spirit.” 
But the shade stalked on, and would not exchange a word 
with Ulysses, though he prayed it with many tears and 
many earnest entreaties. “ He might have spoken to me,” 
said Ulysses, “ since I spoke to him ; but I see the resent- 
ments of the dead are eternal.” 

Then Ulysses saw a throne on which was placed a judge 
distributing sentence. He that sat on the throne was 
Minos, ^nd he was dealing out just judgments to the 
dead. He it is that assigns them their place in bliss or 
woe. 

Then came by a thundering ghost, the large-limbed 


30 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


Orion, the mighty hunter, who was hunting there the 
ghosts of the beasts which he had slaughtered in desert 
hills upon the earth. For the dead delight in the occupa- 
tions which pleased them in the time of their living upon 
the earth. 

There was Tityus suffering eternal pains because he 
had sought to bring dishonor to Latona, as she passed 
from Pytho into Panopeus. Two vultures sat perpetually 
preying upon his liver with their crooked beaks; which 
as fast as they devoured, is forever renewed ; nor can he 
fray them away with his great hands. 

There was Tantalus, plagued for his great sins, stand- 
ing up to the chin in water, which he can never taste, 
but still as he bows his head, thinking to quench his burn- 
ing thirst, instead of water he licks up unsavory dust. 
All fruits pleasant to the sight, and of delicious flavor, 
hang in ripe clusters about his head, seeming as though 
they offered themselves to be plucked by him ; but when 
he reaches out his hand, some wind carries them far out 
of his sight into the clouds : so he is starved in the midst 
of plenty by the righteous doom of Jove, in memory of 
that inhuman banquet at which the sun turned pale, when 
the unnatural father served up the limbs of his little son 
in a dish, as meat for his divine guests. 

There was Sisyphus, that sees no end to his labors. 
His punishment is, to be forever rolling up a vast stone to 
the top of a mountain ; which, when it gets to the top, 
falls down with a. crushing weight, and all his work is 
to be begun again. He was bathed all over in sweat, that 
reeked out a smoke which covered his head lik^e a mist. 
His crime had been the revealing of state secrets. 

There Ulysses saw Hercules — not that Hercules who 

Fray: frighten. 


The Banquet of the Dead 31 

enjoys immortal life in heaven among the gods, and is 
married to Hebe, or Youth; but his shadow, which re- 
mains below. About him the dead flocked as thick as 
bats, hovering around, and cuffing at his head : he stands 
with his dreadful bow, ever in the act to shoot. 

There also might Ulysses have seen and spoken with 
the shades of Theseus, and Pirithous, and the old heroes ; 
but he had conversed enough with horrors; therefore, 
covering his face with his hands, that he might see no 
more spectres, he resumed his seat in his ship, and pushed 
off. The bark moved of itself without the help of any 
oar, and soon brought him out of the regions of death 
into the cheerful quarters of the living, and to the island 
of JE aea, whence he had set forth. 


CHAPTER III. 


The Song of the Sirens. — Scylla and Charybdis. — The Oxen of 

the Sun. — The Judgment. — The Crew killed by Lightning. 

“ Unhappy man, who at thy birth wast appointed twice 
to die ! Others shall die once ; but thou, besides that death 
that remains for thee, common to all men, hast in thy 
lifetime visited the shades of death. Thee Scylla, thee 
Charybdis, expect. Thee the deathful Sirens lie in wait 
for, that taint the minds of whoever listen to them with 
their sweet singing. Whosoever shall but hear the call of 
any Siren, he will so despise both wife and children through 
their sorceries that the stream of his affection never again 
shall set homewards, nor shall he take joy in wife or chil- 
dren thereafter, or they in him.” 

With these prophetic greetings great Circe met Ulysses 
on his return. He besought her to instruct him in the 
nature of the Sirens, and by what method their baneful 
allurements were to be resisted. 

“They are sisters three,” she replied, “that sit in a 
mead (by which your ship must needs pass) circled with 
dead men’s bones. These are the bones of men whom 
they have slain, after with fawning invitements they have 
enticed them into their fen. 

“Yet such is the celestial harmony of their voices 
accompanying the persuasive magic of their words, that, 
knowing this, you shall not be able to withstand their 
enticements. Therefore, when you are to sail by them, 
you shall stop the ears of your companions with wax, that 

32 


33 


Circe’s Warnings. 

they may hear no note of that dangerous music ; but for 
yourself, that you may hear, and yet live, give them strict 
command to bind you hand and foot to the mast, and in 
no case to set you free till you are out of the danger of 
the temptation, though you should entreat it, and implore 
it ever so much, but to bind you rather the more for your 
requesting to be loosed. So shall you escape that snare.” 

Ulysses then prayed her that she would inform him 
what Scylla and Charybdis were, which she had taught 
him by name to fear. She replied : “ Sailing from JE aea 
to Trinacria, you must pass at an equal distance between 
two fatal rocks. Incline never so little either to the one 
side or the other, and your ship must meet with certain 
destruction. No vessel ever yet tried that pass without 
being lost but the Argo, which owed her safety to the 
sacred freight she bore, the fleece of the golden-backed 
ram, which could not perish. The biggest of these rocks 
which you shall come to, Scylla hath in charge. There in 
a deep whirlpool at the foot of the rock the abhorred mon- 
ster shrouds her face ; who if she were to show her full 
form, no eye of man or god could endure the sight : 
thence she stretches out all her six long necks, peering 
and diving to suck up fish, dolphins, dog-fish, and whales, 
whole ships and their men, whatever comes within her 
raging gulf. The other rock is lesser, and of less ominous 
aspect; but there dreadful Charybdis sits, supping the 
black deeps. Thrice a day she drinks her pits dry, and 
thrice a day again she belches them all up ; but when she 
is drinking, come not nigh ; for, being once caught, the 
force of Neptune cannot redeem you from her swallow. 
Better trust to Scylla, for she will but have for her six 
necks six men: Charybdis in her insatiate draught will 
ask all.” 

D 


I 


34 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


Then Ulysses inquired, in case he should escape Charyb- 
dis, whether he might not assail that other monster with 
his sword ; to which she replied that he must not think 
that he had an enemy subject to death, or wounds, to con- 
tend with, for Scylla could never die. Therefore, his best 
safety was in flight, and to invoke none of the gods but 
Cratis, who is Scylla’s mother, and might perhaps forbid 
her daughter to devour them. For his conduct after he 
arrived at Trinacria she referred him to the admonitions 
which had been given him by Tiresias. 

Ulysses having communicated her instructions, as far as 
related to the Sirens, to his companions, who had not been 
present at that interview, but concealing from them the 
rest, as he had done the terrible predictions of Tiresias, 
that they might not be deterred by fear from pursuing 
their voyage — the time for departure being come, they 
set their sails, and took a final leave of great Circe ; who 
by her art calmed the heavens, and gave them smooth 
seas, and a right forewind (the seaman’s friend) to bear 
them on their way to Ithaca. 

They had not sailed past a hundred leagues before the 
breeze which Circe had lent them suddenly stopped. It 
was stricken dead. All the sea lay in prostrate slumber. 
Not a gasp of air could be felt. The ship stood still. 
Ulysses guessed that the island of the Sirens was not far 
off, and that they had charmed the air so with their devil- 
ish singing. Therefore he made him cakes of wax, as 
Circe had instructed him, and stopped the ears of his men 
with them; then causing himself to be bound hand and 
foot, he commanded the rowers to ply their oars and row 
as fast as speed could carry them past that fatal shore. 
They soon came within sight of the Sirens, who sang in 
Ulysses’s hearing : — 


35 


The Song of the Sirens. 

“Come here, thou, worthy of a world of praise, 
That dost so high the Grecian glory raise, — 
Ulysses ! Stay thy ship, and that song hear 
That none pass’d ever, but it bent his ear, 

But left him ravish’d, and instructed more 
By us than any ever heard before. 

For we know all things, — whatsoever were 
In wide Troy labor’d ; whatsoever there 
The Grecians and the Trojans both sustain’d, 
JBy those high issues that the gods ordain’d : 
And whatsoever all the earth can show, 

To inform a knowledge of desert, we know.” 



The Sirens. 


These were the words, but the celestial harmony of the 
voices which sang them no tongue can describe : it took 
the ear of Ulysses with ravishment. He would have 
broken his bonds to rush after them ; and threatened, 
wept, sued, entreated, commanded, crying out with tears 
and passionate imprecations, conjuring his men by all the 
ties of perils past which they had endured in common, by 
fellowship and love, and the authority which he retained 
among them, to let him loose ; but at no rate would they 


3 6 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

obey him. And still the Sirens sang. Ulysses made 
signs, motions, gestures, promising mountains of gold if 
they would set him free ; but their oars only moved faster. 
And still the Sirens sang. And still the more he adjured 
them to set him free, the faster with cords and ropes they 
bound him; till they were quite out of hearing of the 
Sirens’ notes, whose effect great Circe had so truly pre- 
dicted. And well she might speak of them, for often she 
had joined her own enchanting voice to theirs, while she 
has sat in the flowery meads, mingled with the Sirens 
and the Water Nymphs, gathering their potent herbs and 
drugs of magic quality. Their singing all together has 
made the gods stoop, and “ heaven drowsy with the 
harmony.” 

Escaped that peril, they had not sailed yet a hundred 
leagues farther, when they heard a roar afar off, which 
Ulysses knew to be the barking of Scylla’s dogs, which 
surround her waist, and bark incessantly. Coming nearer 
they beheld a smoke ascend, with a horrid murmur, which 
rose from that other whirlpool, to which they made nigher 
approaches than to Scylla. Through the furious eddy, 
which is in that place, the ship stood still as a stone ; for 
there was no man to lend his hand to an oar : the dismal 
roar of Scylla’s dogs at a distance, and the nearer clamors 
of Charybdis, where everything made an echo, quite taking 
from them the power of exertion. Ulysses went up and 
down encouraging his men, one by one, giving them good 
words ; telling them that they were in greater perils when 
they were blocked up in the Cyclop’s cave, yet, heaven 
assisting his counsels, he had delivered them out of that 
extremity; — that he could not believe but they remem- 
bered it ; and wished them to give the same trust to the 
same care which he had now for their welfare ; — that 


Scylla and Charybdis. 


37 


they must exert all the strength and wit which they had, 
and try if Jove would not grant them an escape, even out 
of this peril. In particular he cheered up the pilot who 
sat at the helm, and told him that he must show more 
firmness than other men, as he had more trust committed 
to him ; and had the sole management, by his skill, of the 
vessel in which all their safeties were embarked; — that 
a rock lay hid within those boiling whirlpools which he 
saw, on the outside of which he must steer, if he would 
avoid his own destruction and the destruction of them 
all. 

They heard him, and like men took to the oars ; but 
little knew what opposite danger, in shunning that rock, 
they must be thrown upon. For Ulysses had concealed 
from them the wounds, never to be healed, which Scylla 
was to open ; their terror would else have robbed them all 
of all care to steer or move an oar, and have made them 
hide under the hatches, for fear of seeing her, where he 
and they must have died an idle death. But even then he 
forgot the precautions which Circe had given him to pre- 
vent harm to his person, who had willed him not to arm, 
or show himself once to Scylla; but disdaining not to 
venture life for his brave companions, he could not con- 
tain, but armed in all points, and taking a lance in either 
hand, he went up to the fore-deck, and looked when Scylla 
would appear. 

She did not show herself as yet, and still the vessel 
steered closer by her rock, as it sought to shun that other 
more dreaded ; for they saw how horribly Charybdis’s 
black throat drew into her all the whirling deep, which 
she disgorged again, that all about her boiled like a kettle, 
and the rock roared with troubled waters ; which when 
she supped in again, all the bottom turned up, and dis- 


38 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

closed far under shore the swart sands naked, whose 
whole stern sight frayed the startled blood from their 
faces, and made Ulysses turn his to view the wonder of 
whirlpools. Which when Scylla saw from out her black 
den, she darted out her six long necks, and swooped up 
as many of his friends : whose cries Ulysses heard, and 
saw them too late, with their heels turned up, and their 
hands thrown to him for succor, who had been their help 
in all extremities, but could not deliver them now ; and 
he heard them shriek out as she tore them, and to the 
last they continued to throw their hands out to him for 
sweet life. In all his sufferings he never had beheld a 
sight so full of miseries. 

Escaped from Scylla and Charybdis, but with a dimin- 
ished crew, Ulysses and the sad remains of his followers 
reached the Trinacrian shore. Here landing, he beheld 
oxen grazing of such surpassing size and beauty that, 
both from them and from the shape of the island (having 
three promontories jutting into the sea), he judged rightly 
that he was come to the Triangular Island and the oxen 
of the Sun, of which Tiresias had forewarned him. 

So great was his terror lest through his own fault, or 
that of his men, any violence or profanation should be 
offered to the holy oxen, that even then, tired as they 
were with the perils and fatigues -of the day past, and 
unable to stir an oar, or use any exertion, and though 
night was fast coming on, he would have had them re-em- 
bark immediately, and make the best of their way from 
that dangerous station ; but his men with one voice reso- 
lutely opposed it, and even the too cautious Eurylochus 
himself withstood the proposal ; so much did the tempta- 
tion of a little ease and refreshment (ease tenfold sweet 

Swart : black. 


The Oxen of the Sun. 


39 


after such labors) prevail over the sagest counsels, and the 
apprehension of certain evil outweigh the prospect of con- 
tingent danger. They expostulated that the nerves of 
Ulysses seemed to be made of steel, and his limbs not 
liable to lassitude like other men’s ; that waking or sleep- 
ing seemed indifferent to him; but that they were men, 
not gods, and felt the common appetites for food and 
sleep ; that in the night-time, all the winds most destruc- 
tive to ships are generated ; that black night still required 
to be served with meat and sleep, and quiet havens 
and ease ; that the best sacrifice to the sea was in the 
morning. 

With such sailor-like sayings and mutinous arguments, 
which the majority have always ready to justify disobedi- 
ence to their betters, they forced Ulysses to comply with 
their requisition, and against his will to take up his night- 
quarters on shore. But he first exacted from them an 
oath that they would neither maim nor kill any of the 
cattle which they saw grazing, but content themselves 
with such food as Circe had stowed their vessel with when 
they parted from TLaea. This they man by man severally 
promised, imprecating the heaviest curses on whoever 
should break it ; and mooring their bark within a creek, 
they went to supper, contenting themselves that night with 
such food as Circe had given them, not without many sad 
thoughts of their friends whom Scylla had devoured, the 
grief of which kept them great part of the night waking. 

In the morning, Ulysses urged them again to a religious 
observance of the oath that they had sworn, not in any 
case to attempt the blood of those fair herds which they 
saw grazing, but to content themselves with the ship’s 
food ; for the god who owned those cattle sees and hears 
all. 


4 o 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


They faithfully obeyed, and remained in that good mind 
for a month; during which they were confined to that 
station by contrary winds, till all the wine and the bread 
were gone which they had brought with them. When 
their victuals were gone necessity compelled them to stray 
in quest of whatever fish or fowl they could snare, which 
that coast did not yield in any great abundance. Then 
Ulysses prayed to all the gods that dwelt in bountiful 
heaven, that they would be pleased to yield them some 
means to stay their hunger, without having recourse to 
profane and forbidden violations ; but the ears of heaven 
seemed to be shut, or some god incensed plotted his ruin ; 
for at mid-day, when he should chiefly have been vigilant 
and watchful to prevent mischief, a deep sleep fell upon 
the eyes of Ulysses, during which he lay totally insensible 
of all that passed in the world, and what his friends or 
what his enemies might do for his welfare or destruction. 
Then Eurylochus took his advantage. He was the man of 
most authority with them after Ulysses. He represented 
to them all the misery of their condition ; how that every 
death is hateful and grievous to mortality, but that of all 
deaths famine is attended with the most painful, loath- 
some, and humiliating circumstances ; that the subsistence 
which they could hope to draw from fowling or fishing 
was too precarious to be depended upon ; that there did 
not seem to be any chance of the winds changing to favor 
their escape, but that they must inevitably stay there and 
perish, if they let an irrational superstition deter them 
from the means which Nature offered to their hands; that 
Ulysses might be deceived in his belief that these oxen 
had any sacred qualities above other oxen ; and even 
admitting that they were the property of the god of the 
Sun, as he said they were, the Sun did neither eat nor 


The Judgment. 


4i 


drink, and the gods were best served not by a scrupulous 
conscience, but by a thankful heart, which took freely 
what they as freely offered. 

With these and such like persuasions he prevailed oh 
his half-famished and half-mutinous companions to begin 
the impious violation of their oath by the slaughter of seven 
of the fairest of these oxen which were grazing. Part they 
roasted and ate, and part they offered in sacrifice to the 
gods, particularly to Apollo, god of the Sun, vowing to 
build a temple to his godhead when they should arrive in 
Ithaca, and deck it with magnificent and numerous gifts. 
Vain men ! and superstition worse than that which they 
had so lately derided ! to imagine that prospective peni- 
tence can excuse a present violation of duty, and that the 
pure natures of the heavenly powers will admit of compro- 
mise or dispensation for sin ! 

But to their feast they fell, dividing the roasted portions 
of the flesh, savory and pleasant meat to them, but a sad 
sight to the eyes, and a savor of death in the nostrils, of 
the waking Ulysses, who just woke in time to witness, but 
not soon enough to prevent, their rash and sacrilegious 
banquet. He had scarce time to ask what great mischief 
was this which they had done unto him ; when behold, 
a prodigy ! the ox-hides which they had stripped began to 
creep as if they had life ; and the roasted flesh bellowed 
as the ox used to do when he was living. The hair of 
Ulysses stood up on end with affright at these omens ; but 
his companions, like men whom the gods had infatuated to 
their destruction, persisted in their horrible banquet. 

The Sun from his burning chariot saw how Ulysses’s 
men had slain his oxen, and he cried to his father Jove, 
“ Revenge me upon these impious men who have slain my 
oxen, which it did me good to look upon when I walked 


42 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


my heavenly round. In all my daily course I never saw 
such bright and beautiful creatures as those my oxen were.” 
The father promised that ample retribution should be taken 
of those accursed men : which was fulfilled shortly after, 
when they took their leaves of the fatal island. 

Six days they feasted in spite of the signs of heaven, 
and on the seventh, the wind changing, they set their 
sails and left the island ; and their hearts were cheerful 
with the banquets they had held ; all but the heart of 
Ulysses, which sank within him, as with wet eyes he 
beheld his friends, and gave them for lost, as men devoted 
to divine vengeance. Which soon overtook them ; for 
they had not gone many leagues before a dreadful tem- 
pest arose, which burst their cables ; down came their 
mast, crushing the skull of the pilot in its fall: off he 
fell from the stern into the water ; and the bark, want- 
ing his management, drove along at the wind’s mercy. 

Thunders roared, and terrible lightnings of Jove came 
down : first a bolt struck Eurylochus, then another, and 
then another, till all the crew were killed, and their bodies 
swam about like sea-mews ; and the ship was split in 
pieces. Only Ulysses survived ; and he had no hope of 
safety but in tying himself to the mast, where he sat rid- 
ing upon the waves, like one that in no extremity would 
yield to fortune. Nine days was he floating about with 
all the motions of the sea, with no other support than the 
slender mast under him, till the tenth night cast him, all 
spent and weary with toil, upon the friendly shores of the 
island Ogygia. 


CHAPTER IV. 


The Island of Calypso. — Immortality Refused. 

Henceforth the adventures of the single Ulysses must 
be pursued. Of all those faithful partakers of his toil, who 
with him left Asia, laden with the spoils of Troy, now not 
one remains, but all a prey to the remorseless waves, and 
food for some great fish ; their gallant navy reduced to 
one ship, and that finally swallowed up and lost. Where 
now are all their anxious thoughts of home ? that perse- 
verance with which they went through the severest suffer- 
ings and the hardest labors to which poor seafarers were 
ever exposed, that their toils at last might be crowned 
with the sight of their native shores and wives at Ithaca ! 
Ulysses is now in the isle Ogygia, called the Delightful 
Island. 

The poor shipwrecked chief, the slave of all the ele- 
ments, is once again raised by the caprice of fortune into 
a shadow of prosperity. He that was cast naked upon 
the shore, bereft of all his companions, has now a goddess 
to attend upon him, and his companions are the nymphs 
which never die. Who has not heard of Calypso ? her 
grove crowned with alders and poplars ; her grotto, 
against which the luxuriant vine laid forth his purple 
grapes ; her ever-new delights, crystal fountains, running 
brooks, meadows flowering with sweet balm-gentle and 
with violet; blue violets which like veins enamelled the 
smooth breasts of each fragrant mead ? It were useless 
to describe over again what has been so well told already, 


43 


44 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


or to relate those soft arts of courtship which the goddess 
used to detain Ulysses ; the same in kind which she after- 
wards practised upon his less wary son, whom Athene in 
the shape of Mentor, hardly preserved from her snares, 
when they came to the Delightful Island together in search 
of the scarce departed Ulysses. 

A memorable example of married love, and a worthy 
instance how dear to every good man his country is, was 
exhibited by Ulysses. If Circe loved him sincerely, 
Calypso loves him with tenfold more warmth and passion : 
she can deny him nothing, but his departure ; she offers 
him everything, even to a participation of her immortality 
— if he will stay and share in her pleasures, he shall never 
die. But death with glory has greater charms for a mind 
heroic than a life that shall never die with shame ; and 
when he pledged his vows to his Penelope, he reserved no 
stipulation that he would forsake her whenever a goddess 
should think him worthy, but they had sworn to live and 
grow old together ; and he would not survive her if he 
could, nor meanly share in immortality itself, from which 
she was excluded. 

These thoughts kept him pensive and melancholy in 
the midst of pleasure. His heart was on the seas, making 
voyages to Ithaca. Twelve months had worn away, when 
Athene from heaven saw her favorite, how he sat still 
pining on the sea-shores (his daily custom), wishing for 
a ship to carry him home. She (who is Wisdom herself) 
was indignant that so wise and brave a man as Ulysses 
should be held in effeminate bondage by an unworthy 
goddess; and at her request her father Jove ordered 
Mercury to go down to the earth to command Calypso to 
dismiss her guest. 


Cf. Tennyson’s “ Ulysses . 1 


The Island of Calypso. 


45 


The divine messenger tied fast to his feet his winged 
shoes, which bear him over land and seas, and took in his 
hand his golden rod, the ensign of his authority. Then 
wheeling in many an airy round, he stayed not till he 
alighted on the firm top of the mountain Pieria; thence 
he fetched a second circuit over the seas, kissing the 
waves in his flight with his feet, as light as any sea-mew 
fishing dips her wings, till he touched the isle Ogygia, 



Mercury’s Message to Calypso. 


and soared up from the blue sea to the grotto of the 
goddess to whom his errand was ordained. 

His message struck a horror, checked by love, through 
all the faculties of Calypso. She replied to it, incensed : 
“ You gods are insatiate, past all that live, in all things 
which you affect ; which makes you so envious and grudg- 
ing. It afflicts you to the heart when any goddess seeks 
the love of a mortal man in marriage, though you your- 
selves without scruple link yourselves to women of the 
earth. So it fared with you, when the delicious-fingered 




4 6 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


Morning shared Orion’s love; you could never satisfy 
your hate and your jealousy till you had incensed dame 
Diana, who leads the precise life, to come upon him by 
stealth in Ortygia, and pierce him through with her arrows. 
And when rich-haired Ceres gave the reins to her affec- 
tions, and took Iasion (well worthy) the secret was not so 
cunningly kept but Jove had soon notice of it; and the 
poor mortal paid for bis felicity with death, struck through 
with lightnings. And now you envy me the possession 
of a wretched man whom tempests have cast upon my 
shores, making him lawfully mine; whose ship Jove rent 
in pieces with his hot thunderbolts, killing all his friends. 
Him I have preserved, loved, nourished ; made him mine 
by protection, my creature ; by every tie of gratitude, mine ; 
have vowed to make him deathless like myself ; him you 
will take from me. But I know your power, and that it 
is vain for me to resist. Tell your king that I obey his 
mandates.” 

With an ill grace Calypso promised to fulfil the com- 
mands of Jove; and, Mercury departing, she went to find 
Ulysses, where he sat outside the grotto, not knowing of 
the heavenly message, drowned in discontent, not seeing 
any human probability of his ever returning home. 

She said to him: “Unhappy man, no longer afflict 
yourself with pining after your country, but build you a 
ship, with which you may return home, since it is the will 
of the gods ; who, doubtless, as they are greater in power 
than I, are greater in skill, and best can tell what is fittest 
for man. But I call the gods and my inward conscience 
to witness that I had no thought but what stood with 
thy safety, nor would have done or counselled anything 
against thy good. I persuaded thee to nothing which 
I should not have followed myself in thy extremity ; for 


Immortality Refused. 


47 


my mind is innocent and simple. Oh, if thou knewest 
what dreadful sufferings thou must yet endure before ever 
thou reachest thy native land, thou wouldest not esteem 
so hardly of a goddess’s offer to share her immortality 
with thee ; nor for a few years’ enjoyment of a perishing 
Penelope, refuse an imperishable and never-dying life with 
Calypso.” 

He replied : “ Ever-honored, great Calypso, let it not 
displease thee, that I a mortal man desire to see and con- 
verse again with a wife that is mortal : human objects are 
best fitted to human infirmities. I well know how far in 
wisdom, in feature, in stature, proportion, beauty, in all 
the gifts of the mind, thou exceedest my Penelope : she is 
mortal, and subject to decay ; thou immortal, ever grow- 
ing, yet never old ; yet in her sight all my desires termi- 
nate, all my wishes — in the sight of her, and of my 
country earth. If any god, envious of my return, shall lay 
his dreadful hand upon me as I pass the seas, I submit ; 
for the same powers have, given me a mind not to sink 
under oppression. In wars and waves my sufferings have 
not been small.” 

She heard his pleaded reasons, and of force she must 
assent ; so to her nymphs she gave in charge from her 
sacred woods to cut down timber, to make Ulysses a ship. 
They obeyed, though in a work unsuitable to their soft 
fingers ; yet to obedience no sacrifice is hard ; and Ulysses 
busily bestirred himself, laboring far more hard than they, 
as was fitting, till twenty tall trees, driest and fittest for 
timber, were felled. Then, like a skilful shipwright, he 
fell to joining the planks, using the plane, the axe, and 
the auger with such expedition that in four days’ time a 
ship was made, complete with all her decks, hatches, side- 
boards, yards. Calypso added linen for the sails, and 


4 8 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


tackling ; and when she was finished, she was a goodly 
vessel for a man to sail in, alone or in company, over the 
wide seas. By the fifth morning she was launched ; and 
Ulysses, furnished with store of provisions, rich garments, 
and gold and silver, given him by Calypso, took a last 
leave of her and of her nymphs, and of the isle Ogygia 
which had so befriended him. 


CHAPTER V. 


The Tempest. — The Sea-Bird’s Gift. — The Escape by Swimming. 

— The Sleep in the Woods. 

At the stern of his solitary ship Ulysses sat, and steered 
right artfully. No sleep could seize his eyelids. He be- 
held the Pleiads, the Bear, which is by some called the 
Wain, that moves round about Orion, and keeps still 
above the ocean, and the slow-setting sign Bootes, which 
some name the Wagoner. Seventeen days he held his 
course, and on the eighteenth the coast of Phaeacia was in 
sight. The figure of the land, as seen from the sea, was 
pretty and circular, and looked something like a shield. 

Neptune, returning from visiting his favorite ^Ethiopi- 
ans, from the mountains of the Solymi descried Ulysses 
ploughing the waves, his domain. The sight of the man 
he so much hated for Polyphemus’s sake, his son, whose 
eye Ulysses had put out, set the god’s heart on fire ; and 
snatching into his hand his horrid sea-sceptre, the trident 
of his power, he smote the air and the sea and conjured 
up all his black storms, calling down night from the cope 
of heaven, and taking the earth into the sea, as it seemed, 
with clouds, through the darkness and indistinctness 
which prevailed; the billows rolling up before the fury 
of all the winds, that contended together in their mighty 
sport. 

Then the knees of Ulysses bent with fear, and then all 
his spirit was spent, and he wished that he had been 

Cope : covering, arch. 

E 49 


5 ° 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


among the number of his countrymen who fell before 
Troy, and had their funerals celebrated by all the Greeks, 
rather than to perish thus, where no man could mourn him 
or know him. 

As he thought these melancholy thoughts, a huge wave 
took him and washed him overboard, ship and all upset 
amidst the billows, he struggling afar off, clinging to her 
stern broken off which he yet held, her mast cracking in 
two with the fury of that gust of mixed winds that struck 
it, sails and sail-yards fell into the deep, and he himself 
was long drowned under water, nor could get his head 
above, wave so met wave, as if they strove which should 
depress him most ; and the gorgeous garments given him 
by Calypso clung about him, and hindered his swimming ; 
yet neither for this, nor for the overthrow of his ship, nor 
his own perilous condition, would he give up his drenched 
vessel; but, wrestling with Neptune, got at length hold 
of her again, and then sat in her hull, insulting over death, 
which he had escaped, and the salt waves which he gave 
the seas again to give to other men ; his ship, striving to 
live, floated at random, cuffed from wave to wave, hurled 
to and fro by all the winds : now Boreas tossed it to 
Notus, Notus passed it to Eurus, and Eurus to the West 
Wind, who kept up the horrid tennis. 

Them in their mad sport Ino Leucothea beheld — Ino 
Leucothea, now a sea-goddess, but once a mortal and the 
daughter of Cadmus ; she with pity beheld Ulysses the 
mark of their fierce contention, and rising from the waves 
alighted on the ship, in shape like to the sea-bird which is 
called a cormorant ; and in her beak she held a wonderful 
girdle made of sea-weeds, which grow at the bottom of the 
ocean, which she dropped at his feet ; and the bird spake 
to Ulysses, and counselled him not to trust any more to 


The Sea-bird’s Gift. 


5i 

that fatal vessel against which god Neptune had levelled 
his furious wrath, nor to those ill-befriending garments 
which Calypso had given him, but to quit both it and 
them, and trust for his safety to swimming. “ And here,” 
said the seeming bird, “ take this girdle and tie about 
your middle, which has virtue to protect the wearer at sea, 
and you shall safely reach the shore ; but when you have 
landed, cast it far from you back into the sea.” He did 
as the sea-bird instructed him ; he stripped himself naked, 
and, fastening the wondrous girdle about his middle, cast 
himself into the seas, to swim. The bird dived past his 
sight into the fathomless abyss of the ocean. 

Two days and two nights he spent in struggling with 
the waves, though sore buffeted, and almost spent, never 
giving up himself for lost ; such confidence he had in that 
charm which he wore about his middle, and in the words 
of that divine bird. But the third morning the winds 
grew calm and all the heavens were clear. Then he saw 
himself nigh land, which he knew to be the coast of the 
Phaeacians, a people good to strangers and abounding in 
ships, by whose favor he doubted not that he should soon 
obtain a passage to his own country. And such joy he 
conceived in his heart as good sons have that esteem their 
father’s life dear, when long sickness has held him down 
to his bed and wasted his body, and they see at length 
health return to the old man, with restored strength and 
spirits, in reward of their many prayers to the gods for 
his safety : so precious was the prospect of home-return to 
Ulysses, that he might restore health to his country (his 
better parent), that had long languished as full of dis- 
tempers in his absence. And then for his own safety’s 
sake he had joy to see the shores, the woods, so nigh and 
within his grasp as they seemed, and he labored with all 


52 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

the might of hands and feet to reach with swimming that 
nigh-seeming land. 

But when he approached near, a horrid sound of a huge 
sea beating against rocks informed him that here was no 
place for landing, nor any harbor for man’s resort; but 
through the weeds and the foam which the sea belched up 
against the land he could dimly discover the rugged shore 
all bristled with flints, and all that part of the coast one 
impending rock that seemed impossible to climb, and the 
water all about so deep that not a sand was there for any 
tired foot to rest upon ; and every moment he feared lest 
some wave more cruel than the rest should crush him 
against a cliff, rendering worse than vain all his landing ; 
and should he swim to seek a more commodious haven far- 
ther on, he was fearful lest, weak and spent as he was, the 
winds would force him back a long way off into the main, 
where the terrible god Neptune, for wrath that he had so 
nearly escaped his power, having gotten him again into 
his domain, would send out some great whale (of which 
these seas breed a horrid number) to swallow him up 
alive : with such malignity he still pursued him. 

While these thoughts distracted him with diversity of 
dangers, one bigger wave drove against a sharp rock his 
naked body, which it gashed and tore, and wanted little of 
breaking all his bones, so rude was the shock. But in this 
extremity she prompted him that never failed him at need. 
Athene (who is Wisdom itself) put it into his thoughts no 
longer to keep swimming off and on, as one dallying with 
danger, but boldly to force the shore that threatened him, 
and to hug the rock that had torn him so rudely ; which 
with both hands he clasped, wrestling with extremity, till 
the rage of that billow which had driven him upon it was 
passed ; but then again the rock drove back that wave so 


53 


The Escape by Swimming. 

furiously that it reft him of his hold, sucking him with it 
in its return; and the sharp rock, his cruel friend, to 
which he clung for succor, rent the flesh so sore from his 
hands in parting that he fell off, and could sustain no 
longer; quite under water he fell, and, past the help of 
fate, there had the hapless Ulysses lost all portion that he 
had in this life, if Athene had not prompted his wisdom 
in that peril to essay another course, and to explore some 
other shelter, ceasing to attempt that landing-place. 

She guided his wearied and nigh-exhausted limbs to the 
mouth of the fair river Callirhoe, which not far from 
thence disbursed its watery tribute to the ocean. Here 
the shores were easy and accessible, and the rocks, which 
rather adorned than defended its banks, so smooth that 
they seemed polished of purpose to invite the landing of 
our sea-wanderer, and to atone for the uncourteous treat- 
ment which those less hospitable cliffs had afforded him. 

And the god of the river, as if in pity, stayed his current, 
and smoothed his waters, to make his landing more easy ; 
for sacred to the ever-living deities of the fresh waters, be 
they mountain-stream, river, or lake, is the cry of erring 
mortals that seek their aid, by reason that, being inland- 
bred, they partake more of the gentle humanities of our 
nature than those marine deities whom Neptune trains up 
in tempests in the unpitying recesses of his salt abyss. 

So by the favor of the river’s god Ulysses crept to land 
half-drowned ; both his knees faltering, his strong hands 
falling down through weakness from the excessive toils 
he had endured, his cheeks and nostrils flowing with froth 
of the sea-brine, much of which he had swallowed in that 
conflict, voice and breath spent, down he sank as in death. 

Dead weary he was. It seemed that the sea had soaked 
through his heart, and the pains he felt in all his veins 


54 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


were little less than those which one feels that has 
endured the torture of the rack. But when his spirits 
came a little to themselves, and his recollection by degrees 
began to return, he rose up, and unloosing from hi-s waist 
the girdle or charm which that divine bird had given him, 
and remembering the charge which he had received with 
it, he flung it far from him into the river. Back it swam 
with the course of the ebbing stream till it reached the 
sea, where the fair hands of Ino Leucothea received it to 
keep it as a pledge of safety to any future shipwrecked 
mariner that, like Ulysses, should wander in those perilous 
waves. 

Then he kissed the humble earth in token of safety, 
and on he went by the side of that pleasant river, till he 
came where a thicker shade of rushes that grew on its 
banks seemed to point out the place where he might rest 
his sea-wearied limbs. And here a fresh perplexity divided 
his mind, whether he should pass the night, which was 
coming on, in that place, where, though he feared no other 
enemies, the damps and frosts of the chill sea-air in that 
exposed situation might be death to him in his weak state ; 
or whether he had better climb the next hill, and pierce 
the depth of some shady wood, in which he might find a 
warm and sheltered though insecure repose, subject to the 
approach of any wild beast that roamed that way. Best 
did this last course appear to him, though with some 
danger, as that which was more honorable and savored 
more of strife and self-exertion than to perish without a 
struggle the passive victim of cold and the elements. 

So he bent his course to the nearest woods, where, 
entering in, he found a thicket, mostly of wild olives and 
such low trees, yet growing so intertwined and knit 
together that the moist wind had not leave to play through 


55 


The Sleep in the Woods. 

their branches, nor the sun’s scorching beams to pierce 
their recesses, nor any shower to beat through, they grew 
so thick, and as it were folded each in the other. 

Here creeping in, he made his bed of the leaves which 
were beginning to fall, of which was such abundance that 
two or three men might have spread them ample coverings, 
such as might shield them from the winter’s rage, though 
the air breathed steel and blew as it would burst. Here 
creeping in, he heaped up store of leaves all about him as 
a man would billets upon a winter fire, and lay down in 
the midst. Rich seed of virtue lying hid in poor leaves ! 
Here Athene soon gave him sound sleep ; and here all his 
long toils past seemed to be concluded and shut up within 
the little sphere of his refreshed and closed eyelids. 


CHAPTER VI. 


The Princess Nausicaa. — The Washing. — The Game with the 
Ball. — The Court of Ph^eacia and King Alcinous. 

Meantime Athene, designing an interview between the 
king’s daughter of that country and Ulysses when he 
should awake, went by night to the palace of King Alci- 
nous, and stood at the bedside of the princess Nausicaa 
in the shape of one of her favorite attendants, and thus 
addressed the sleeping princess : — 

“ Nausicaa, why do you lie sleeping here, and never 
bestow a thought upon your bridal ornaments, of which 
you have many and beautiful, laid up in your wardrobe 
against the day of your marriage, which cannot be far 
distant ; when you shall have need of all, not only to deck 
your own person, but to give away in presents to the 
virgins that honoring you shall attend you to the temple ? 
Your reputation stands much upon the timely care of 
these things ; these things are they which fill father and 
reverend mother with delight. Let us arise betimes to 
wash your fair vestments of linen and silks in the river ; 
and request your sire to lend you mules and a coach, for 
your wardrobe is heavy, and the place where we must 
wash is distant ; and besides it fits not a great princess 
like you to go so far on foot.” 

So saying, she went away, and Nausicaa awoke, full 
of pleasing thoughts of her marriage, which the dream 
had told her was not far distant ; and as soon as it was 

56 


The Washing. 57 

dawn she arose and dressed herself, and went to find her 
parents. 

The queen her mother was already up, and seated 
among her maids, spinning at her wheel, as the fashion 
was in those primitive times, when great ladies did not 
disdain housewifery : and the king her father was prepar- 
ing to go abroad at that early hour to counsel with his 
grave senate. 

“ My father,” she said, “ will you not order mules and 
a coach to be got ready, that I may go and wash, I and 
my maids, at the cisterns that stand without the city ? ” 

“ What washing does my daughter speak of ? ” said 
Alcinous. 

“Mine and my brothers’ garments,” she replied, “that 
have contracted soil by this time with lying by so long in 
the wardrobe. Five sons have you that are my brothers ; 
two of them are married, and three are bachelors ; these 
last it concerns to have their garments neat and unsoiled ; 
it may advance their fortunes in marriage : and who but I 
their sister should have a care of these things ? You your- 
self, my father, have need of the whitest apparel when you 
go, as now, to the council.” 

She used this plea, modestly dissembling her care of 
her own nuptials to her father ; who was not displeased at 
this instance of his daughter’s discretion ; for a seasonable 
care about marriage may be permitted to a young maiden, 
provided it be accompanied with modesty and dutiful 
submission to her parents in the choice of her future 
husband; and there was no fear of Nausicaa choosing 
wrongly or improperly ; for she was as wise as she was 
beautiful, and the best in all Phaeacia were suitors to her 
for her love. So Alcinous readily gave consent that she 
should go, ordering mules and a coach to be prepared. 


5 » 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


And Nausicaa brought from her chamber all her vest- 
ments, and laid them up in the coach ; and her mother 
placed bread and wine in the coach, and oil in a golden 
cruse, to soften the bright skins of Nausicaa and her maids 
when they came out of the river. 

Nausicaa, making her maids get up into the coach with 
her, drove the mules, till they brought her to the cisterns 



which stood a little on the outside of the town, and were 
supplied with water from the river Callirhoe. 

There her attendants unyoked the mules, took out the 
clothes, and steeped them in the cisterns, washing them 
in several waters, and afterwards treading them clean 
with their feet ; venturing wagers who should have done 
soonest and cleanest, and using many pretty pastimes to 
beguile their labor as young maids use, while the princess 
looked on. When they had laid their clothes to dry, they 
fell to playing again ; and Nausicaa joined them in a game 
with the ball, which is used in that country; which is 


The Game with the Ball. 


59 


performed by tossing the ball from hand to hand with 
great expedition, she who begins the pastime singing a 
song. It chanced that the princess, whose turn it became 
to toss the ball, sent it so far from its mark, that it fell 
beyond into one of the cisterns of the river ; at which the 
whole company, in merry consternation, set up a shriek so 
loud that it waked the sleeping Ulysses, who was taking 
his rest, after his long toils, in the woods, not far distant 
from the place where these young maids had come to 
wash. 

At the sound of female voices, Ulysses crept forth from 
his retirement, making himself a covering with boughs 
and leaves as well as he could to shroud his nakedness. 
The sudden appearance of his weather-beaten and almost 
naked form so frightened the maidens that they scudded 
away into the woods and all about to hide themselves, 
only Athene (who had brought' about this interview to 
admirable purposes, by seemingly accidental means) put 
courage into the breast of Nausicaa, and she stayed where 
she was, and resolved to know what manner of man he 
was, and what was the occasion of his strange coming to 
them. 

He, not venturing (for delicacy) to approach and clasp 
her knees, as suppliants should, but standing far off, 
addressed this speech to the young princess : — 

“Before I presume rudely to press my petitions, I 
should first ask whether I am addressing a mortal woman, 
or one of the goddesses. If a goddess, you seem to me to 
be likest to Diana, the chaste huntress, the daughter of 
Jove. Like hers are your lineaments, your stature, your 
features, and air divine.” 

She making answer that she was no goddess, but a mor- 
tal maid, he continued : — 


6o 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


“ If a woman, thrice blessed are both the authors of your 
birth ; thrice blessed are your brothers, who even to rap- 
ture must have joy in your perfections, to see you grown 
so like a young tree, and so graceful. But most blessed 
of all that breathe is he that has the gift to engage your 
young neck in the yoke of marriage. I never saw that 
man that was worthy of you. I never saw man or woman 
that at all parts equalled you. Lately at Delos (where I 
touched) I saw a young palm which grew beside Apollo’s 
temple ; it exceeded all the trees which ever I beheld for 
straightness and beauty : I can compare you only to that. 
A stupor past admiration strikes me, joined with fear, which 
keeps me back from approaching you, to embrace your 
knees. Nor is it strange; for one of freshest and firmest 
spirit would falter, approaching near to so bright an object : 
but I am one whom a cruel habit of calamity has prepared 
to receive strong impressions. Twenty days the unrelent- 
ing seas have tossed me up and 'down coming from Ogygia, 
and at length cast me ship-wrecked last night upon your 
coast. I have seen no man or woman since I landed but 
yourself. All that I crave is clothes, which you may spare 
me, and to be shown the way to some neighboring town. 
The gods, who have care of strangers, will requite you for 
these courtesies.” 

She, admiring to hear such complimentary words pro- 
ceed out of the mouth of one whose outside looked so 
rough and unpromising, made answer : “ Stranger, I dis- 
cern neither sloth nor folly in you, and yet I see that you 
are poor and wretched : from which I gather that neither 
wisdom nor industry can secure felicity ; only Jove bestows 
it upon whomsoever he pleases. He perhaps has reduced 
you to this plight. However, since your wanderings have 
brought you so near to our city, it lies in our duty to 


The Court and King Alcinous. 61 

su Pply your wants. Clothes, and what else a human hand 
should give to one so suppliant, and so tamed with calam- 
ity, you shall not want. We will show you our city and 
tell you the name of our people. This is the land of the 
Phaeacians, of which my father, Alcinous, is king.” 

Then calling her attendants, who had dispersed on the 
first sight of Ulysses, she rebuked them for their fear, and 
said : “ This man is no Cyclop, nor monster of sea or land, 
that you should fear him ; but he seems manly, staid, and 
discreet, and though decayed in his outward appearance, 
yet he has the mind’s riches, wit and fortitude, in abun- 
dance. Show him the cisterns, where he may wash him 
from the sea-weeds and foam that hang about him, and let 
him have garments that fit him out of those which we 
have brought with us to the cisterns.” 

Ulysses, retiring a little out of sight, cleansed him 
in the cisterns from the soil and impurities with which 
the rocks and waves had covered all his body ; and, cloth- 
ing himself with befitting raiment, which the princess’s 
attendants had given him, he presented himself in more 
worthy shape to Nausicaa. She admired to see what a 
comely personage he was, now he was dressed in all parts : 
she thought him some king or hero : and secretly wished 
that the gods would be pleased to give her such a husband. 

Then causing her attendants to yoke her mules, and lay 
up the vestments, which the sun’s heat had sufficiently 
dried, in the coach, she ascended with her maids, and 
drove off to the palace ; bidding Ulysses, as she departed, 
keep an eye upon the coach, and to follow it on foot at 
some distance : which she did, because if she had suffered 
him to have ridden in the coach with her, it might have sub- 
jected her to some misconstructions of the common people, 
who are always ready to vilify and censure their betters, 


6 2 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


and to suspect that charity is not always pure charity, but 
that love or some sinister intention lies hid under its disguise. 
So discreet and attentive to appearance in all her actions 
was this admirable princess. 

Ulysses, as he entered the city, wondered to see its mag- 
nificence, its markets, buildings, temples; its walls and 
rampires, its trade, and resort of men ; its harbors for ship- 
ping, which is the strength of the Phaeacian state. But when 



he approached the palace, and beheld its riches, the propor- 
tion of its architecture, its avenues, gardens, statues, foun- 
tains, he stood rapt in admiration, and almost forgot his own 
condition in surveying the flourishing estate of others ; but 
recollecting himself, he passed on boldly into the inner 
apartment, where the king and queen were sitting at dinner 
with their peers, Nausicaa having prepared them for his 
approach. 

To them humbly kneeling, he made it his request that, 
since fortune has cast him naked upon their shores, they 

Rampires : ramparts. 



6 3 


The Court and King Alcinous. 

would take him into their protection, and grant him a con- 
veyance by one of the ships of which their great Phseacian 
state had such good store, to carry him to his own country. 
Having delivered his request, to grace it with more humility 
he went and sat himself down upon the hearth among the 
ashes, as the custom was in those days when any would 
make a petition to the throne. 

He seemed a petitioner of so great state and of so supe- 
rior a deportment that Alcinous himself arose to do him 
honor, and causing him to leave that abject station which 
he had assumed, placed him next to his throne, upon a 
chair of state, and thus he spake to his peers : — 

“ Lords and councillors of Phaeacia, ye see this man, 
who he is we know not, that is come to us in the guise of 
a petitioner : he seems no mean one ; but whoever he is, 
it is fit, since the gods hav£ cast him upon our protection, 
that we grant him the rites of hospitality while he stays 
with us ; and at his departure a ship well manned to con- 
vey so worthy a personage as he seems to be, in a manner 
suitable to his rank, to his own country.” 

This counsel the peers with one consent approved ; and 
wine and meat being set before Ulysses, he ate and drank, 
and gave the gods thanks who had stirred up the royal 
bounty of Alcinous to aid him in that extremity. But not 
as yet did he reveal to the king and queen who he was, or 
whence he had come ; only in brief terms he related his 
being cast upon their shores, his sleep in the woods, and 
his meeting with the princess Nausicaa, whose generosity, 
mingled with discretion, filled her parents with delight, as 
Ulysses in eloquent phrases adorned and commended her 
virtues. 

But Alcinous, humanely considering that, in consequence 
of the troubles which his guest had undergone, he required 


6 4 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


rest, as well as refreshment by food, dismissed him early 
in the evening to his chamber ; where in a magnificent 
apartment Ulysses found a smoother bed, but not a 
sounder repose, than he had enjoyed the night before, 
sleeping upon leaves which he had scraped together in his 
necessity. 


CHAPTER VII. 


The Songs of Demodocus. — The Convoy Home. — The Mariners 

TRANSFORMED TO STONE. — THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 

When it was daylight, Alcinous caused it to be proclaimed 
by the heralds about the town that there was come to the 
palace a stranger, shipwrecked on their coast, that in mien 
and person resembled a god ; and he invited all the chief 
people of the city to come and do honor to the stranger. 

The palace was quickly filled with guqsts, old and 
young, for whose cheer, and to grace Ulysses more, Alci- 
nous made a kingly feast with banquetings and music. 
Then, Ulysses being seated at a table next the king and 
queen, in all men’s view, after they had feasted Alcinous 
ordered Demodocus, the court-singer, to be called to sing 
some song of the deeds of heroes, to charm the ear of his 
guest. 

Demodocus came and reached his harp, where it hung 
between two pillars of silver ; and then the blind singer, 
to whom, in recompense of his lost sight, the Muses had 
given an inward discernment, a soul and a voice to excite 
the hearts of men and gods to delight, began in grave and 
solemn strains to sing the glories of men highliest famed. 
He chose a poem whose subject was the stern strife stirred 
up between Ulysses and the great Achilles, as, at a banquet 
sacred to the gods, in dreadful language, they expressed 
their difference ; while Agamemnon sat rejoiced in soul to 
hear those Grecians jar ; for the oracle in Pytho had told 
f 65 


66 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


him that the period of their wars in Troy should then be, 
when the kings of Greece, anxious to arrive at the wished 
conclusion, should fall to strife, and contend which must 
end the war, force or stratagem. 

This brave contention he expressed so to the life, in the 
very words which they both used in the quarrel, as brought 
tears into the eyes of Ulysses at the remembrance of past 
passages of his life ; and he held his large purple weed 



before his face to conceal it. Then craving a cup of wine, 
he poured it out in secret libation to the gods, who had 
put into the mind of Demodocus unknowingly to do him 
so much honor. But when the moving poet began to tell 
of other occurrences where Ulysses had been present, the 
memory of his brave followers who had been with him in 
all difficulties, now swallowed up and lost in the ocean, and 
of those kings that had fought with him at Troy, some of 
whom were dead, some exiles like himself, forced itself 
so strongly upon his mind that, forgetful where he was, he 


Period : limit, end. 


Weed : garment. 


67 


The Song of Demodocus. 

sobbed outright with passion : which yet he restrained, 
but not so cunningly but Alcinous perceived it, and with- 
out taking notice of it to Ulysses, privately gave signs 
that Demodocus should cease from his singing. 

Next followed dancing in the Phaeacian fashion, when 
they would show respect to their guests ; which was suc- 
ceeded by trials of skill, games of strength, running, racing, 
hurling of the quoit, mock fights, hurling of the javelin, 
shooting with the bow : in some of which Ulysses modestly 
challenging his entertainers, performed such feats of 
strength and prowess as gave the admiring Phaeacians 
fresh reason to imagine that he was either some god, or 
hero of the race of the gods. 

These solemn shows and pageants in honor of his guest 
king Alcinous continued for the space of many days, as if 
he could never be weary of showing courtesies to so worthy 
a stranger. In all this time he never asked him his name, 
nor sought to know more of him than he of his own accord 
disclosed ; till on a day as they were seated feasting, after 
the feast was ended, Demodocus being called, as was the 
custom, to sing some grave matter, sang how Ulysses, on 
that night when Troy was fired, made dreadful proof of 
his valor, maintaining singly a combat against the whole 
household of Deiphobus ; to which the divine expresser 
gave both act and passion, and breathed such a fire into 
Ulysses’s deeds, that it inspired old death with life in the 
lively expressing of slaughters, and rendered life so sweet 
and passionate in the hearers that all who heard felt it fleet 
from them in the narration : which made Ulysses even 
pity his own slaughterous deeds, and feel touches of re- 
morse, to see how song can revive a dead man from the 
grave, yet no way can it defend a living man from death ; 
and in imagination he underwent some part of death’s 


68 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

horrors, and felt in his living body a taste of those dying 
pangs which he had dealt to others, that with the strong 
conceit, tears (the true interpreters of unutterable emo- 
tion) stood in his eyes. 

Which king Alcinous noting, and that this was now the 
second time that he had perceived him to be moved at 
the mention of events touching the Trojan wars, he took 
occasion to ask whether his guest had lost any friend 
or kinsman at Troy, that Demodocus’s singing had 
brought into his mind. Then Ulysses, drying the tears 
with his cloak, and observing that the eyes of all the 
company were upon him, desirous to give them satisfac- 
tion in what he could, and thinking this a fit time to 
reveal his true name and destination, spake as follows : — 

“The courtesies which ye all have shown me, and 
in particular yourself and princely daughter, O king 
Alcinous, demand from me that I should no longer keep 
you in ignorance of what or who I am ; for to reserve 
any secret from you, who have with such openness of 
friendship embraced my love, would argue either a pu- 
sillanimous or an ungrateful mind in me. Know, then, 
that I am that Ulysses, of whom I perceive ye have heard 
something ; who heretofore have filled the world with the 
renown of my policies. I am he by whose councils, if 
Fame is to be believed at all, more than by the united 
valor of all the Grecians, Troy fell. I am that unhappy 
man whom the heavens and angry gods have conspired to 
keep an exile on the seas, wandering to seek my home, 
which still flies from me. The land which I am in quest 
of is Ithaca ; in whose ports some ship belonging to your 
navigation-famed Phaeacian state may haply at some time 
have found a refuge from tempests. If ever you have 
experienced such kindness, requite it now, by granting to 


The Convoy Home. 69 

me, who am the king of that land, a passport to that 
land.” 

Admiration seized all the court of Alcinous to behold 
in their presence one of the number of those heroes who 
fought at Troy, whose divine story had been made known 
to them by songs and poems, but of the truth they had 
little known, or rather they had hitherto accounted those 
heroic exploits as fictions and exaggerations of poets; 
but having seen and made proof of the real Ulysses, they 
began to take those supposed inventions to be real 
verities, and the tale of Troy to be as true as it was 
delightful. 

Then king Alcinous made answer: “Thrice fortunate 
ought we to esteem our lot in having seen and conversed 
with a man of whom report hath spoken so loudly, but, 
as it seems, nothing beyond the truth. Though we could 
desire no felicity greater than to have you always among 
us, renowned Ulysses, yet your desire having been 
expressed so often and so deeply to return home, we 
can deny you nothing, though to our own loss. Our 
kingdom of Phaeacia, as you know, is chiefly rich in 
shipping. In all parts of the world, where there are 
navigable seas, or ships can pass, our vessels will be 
found. You cannot name a coast to which they do not 
resort. Every rock and every quicksand is known to 
them that lurks in the vast deep. They pass a bird in 
flight; and with such unerring certainty they make to 
their destination that some have said that they have 
no need of pilot or rudder, but that they move instinc- 
tively, self-directed, and know the minds of their 
voyagers. Thus much, that you may not fear to trust 
yourself in one of our Phseacian ships. To-morrow, if 
you please, you shall launch forth. To-day spend with 


70 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

us in feasting, who never can do enough when the gods 
send such visitors.” 

Ulysses acknowledged king Alcinous’s bounty ; and 
while these two royal personages stood exchanging 
courteous expressions, the heart of the princess Nausicaa 
was overcome : she had been gazing attentively upon 
her father’s guest as he delivered his speech ; but when 
he came to that part where he declared himself to be 
Ulysses, she blessed herself and her fortune that in 
relieving a poor shipwrecked mariner, as he seemed no 
better, she had conferred a kindness on so divine a hero 
as he proved ; and scarce waiting till her father had done 
speaking, with a cheerful countenance she addressed 
Ulysses, bidding him be cheerful, and when he returned 
home, as by her father’s means she trusted he would 
shortly, sometimes to remember to whom he owed his 
life, and who met him in the woods by the river 
Callirhoe. 

“ Fair flower of Phaeacia,” he replied, “so may all the 
gods bless me with the strife of joys in that desired day, 
whenever I shall see it, as I shall always acknowledge 
to be indebted to your fair hand for the gift of life which 
I enjoy, and all the blessings which shall follow upon 
my home-return. The gods give thee, Nausicaa, a princely 
husband ; and from you two spring blessings to this state.” 
So prayed Ulysses, his heart overflowing with admiration 
and grateful recollections of king Alcinous’s daughter. 

Then at the king’s request he gave them a brief rela- 
tion of all the adventures that had befallen him since he 
launched forth from Troy; during which the princess 
Nausicaa took great delight (as ladies are commonly taken 
with these kind of travelers’ stories) to hear of the mon- 
ster of Polyphemus, of the men that devour each other in 


The Convoy Home. 71 

Laestrygonia, of the enchantress Circe, of Scylla, and the 
rest ; to which she listened with a breathless attention, let- 
ting fall a shower of tears from her fair eyes every now 
and then, when Ulysses told of some more than usual dis- 
tressful passage in his travels ; and all the rest of his audi- 
tors, if they had before entertained a high respect for their 
guest, now felt their veneration increased tenfold, when 
they learned from his own mouth what perils, what suffer- 
ance, what endurance, of evils beyond man’s strength to 
support, this much-sustaining, almost heavenly man, by the 
greatness of his mind and by his invincible courage, had 
struggled through. 

The night was far spent before Ulysses had ended his 
narrative, and with wistful glances he cast his eyes towards 
the eastern parts, which the sun had begun to flecker with 
his first red ; for on the morrow Alcinous had promised 
that a bark should be in readiness to convey him to Ithaca. 

In the morning a vessel well manned and appointed was 
waiting for him ; into which the king and queen heaped 
presents of gold and silver, massy plate, apparel, armor, 
and whatsoever things of cost or rarity they judged would 
be most acceptable to their guest ; and the sails being set, 
Ulysses, embarking with expressions of regret, took his 
leave of his royal entertainers, of the fair princess (who 
had been his first friend), and of the peers of Phaeacia; 
who, crowding down to the beach to have the last sight of 
their illustrious visitant, beheld the gallant ship with all her 
canvas spread, bounding and curvetting over the waves, 
like a horse proud of his rider, or as if she knew that in 
her rich freightage she bore Ulysses. 

He whose life past had been a series of disquiets, in seas 
among rude waves, in battles amongst ruder foes, now 
slept securely, forgetting all ; his eyelids bound in such 


72 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


deep sleep as only yielded to death ; and when they 
reached the nearest Ithacan port by the next morning, he 
was still asleep. The mariners, not willing to awake him, 
landed him softly, and laid him in a cave at the foot of an 
olive tree, which made a shady recess in that narrow har- 
bor, the haunt of almost none but the sea-nymphs, which 
are called Naiads ; few ships before this Phaeacian vessel 
having put into that haven, by reason of the difficulty 
and narrowness of the entrance. 

Here leaving him asleep, and disposing in safe places 
near him the presents with which king Alcinous had dis- 
missed him, they departed for Phaeacia, where these 
wretched mariners never again set foot; but just as they 
arrived, and thought to salute their country earth, in sight 
of their city’s turrets, and in open view of their friends 
who from the harbor with shouts greeted their return, 
their vessel and all the mariners which were in her were 
turned to stone, and stood transformed and fixed in sight 
of the whole Phaeacian city, where it yet stands, by Nep- 
tune’s vindictive wrath ; who resented thus highly the con- 
tempt which those Phaeacians had shown in conveying home 
a man whom the god had destined to destruction. Whence 
it comes to pass that the Phaeacians at this day will at no 
price be induced to lend their ships to strangers, or to 
become the carriers for other nations, so highly do they 
still dread the displeasure of the sea-god, while they see 
that terrible monument ever in sight. 

When Ulysses awoke, which was not till some time 
after the mariners had departed, he did not at first know 
his country again, either that long absence had made it 
strange, or that Athene (which was more likely) had cast 
a cloud about his eyes, that he should have greater pleas- 
ure hereafter in discovering his mistake; but like a man 


Mariners Turned to Stone. 


73 


suddenly awaking in some desert isle, to which his sea- 
mates have transported him in his sleep, he looked around, 
and discerning no known objects, he cast his hands to 
heaven for pity, and complained on those ruthless men 
who had beguiled him with a promise of conveying him 
home to his country, and perfidiously left him to perish in 
an unknown land. But then the^ich presents of gold and 
silver given him by Alcinous, which he saw carefully laid 
up in secure places near him, staggered him : which 
seemed not like the act of wrongful or unjust men, such 
as turn pirates for gain, or land helpless passengers in 
remote coasts to possess themselves of their goods. 

While he remained in this suspense, there came up to 
him a young shepherd, clad in the finer sort of apparel, 
such as kings’ sons wore in those days when princes did 
not disdain to tend sheep ; who, accosting him, was saluted 
again by Ulysses, who asked him what country that was 
on which he had been just landed, and whether it were 
part of a continent, or an island. The young shepherd 
made show of wonder to hear any one ask the name of 
that land ; as country people are apt to esteem those for 
mainly ignorant and barbarous who do not know the 
names of places which are familiar to them, though per- 
haps they who ask have had no opportunities of knowing, 
and may have come from far countries. 

“I had thought,” said he, “that all people knew our 
land. It is rocky and barren, to be sure ; but well enough : 
it feeds a goat or an ox well ; it is not wanting either in 
wine qr in wheat ; it has good springs of water, some fair 
rivers ; and wood enough, as you may see : it is called 
Ithaca.” 

Ulysses was joyed enough to find himself in his own 
country ; but so prudently he carried his joy, that, dis- 


74 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


sembling his true name and quality, he pretended to the 
shepherd that he was only some foreigner who by stress 
of weather had put into that port; and framed on the 
sudden a story to make it plausible, how he had come 
from Crete in a ship of Phaeacia ; when the young shep- 
herd, laughing, and taking Ulysses’s hand in both his, 
said to him : “ He must be cunning, I find, who thinks to 
overreach you. What, cannot you quit your wiles and 
your subtleties, now that you are in a state of security ? 
must the first word with which you salute your native earth 
be an untruth ? and think you that you are unknown ? ” 

Ulysses looked again ; and he saw, not a shepherd, but 
a beautiful woman, whom he immediately knew to be the 
goddess Athene, that in the wars of Troy had frequently 
vouchsafed her sight to him ; and had been with him since 
in perils, saving him unseen. 

“ Let not my ignorance offend thee, great Athene,” he 
cried, “ or move thy displeasure, that in that shape I knew 
thee not ; since the skill of discerning deities is not 
attainable by wit or study, but hard to be hit by the 
wisest of mortals. To know thee truly through all thy 
changes is only given to those whom thou art pleased to 
grace. To all men thou takest all likenesses. All men 
in their wits think that they know thee, and that they 
have thee. Thou art Wisdom itself. But a semblance of 
thee, which is false wisdom, often is taken for thee ; so 
thy counterfeit view appears to many, but thy true pres- 
ence to few : those are they which, loving thee above all, 
are inspired with light from thee to know thee. But this 
I surely know, that all the time the sons of Greece waged 
war against Troy, I was sundry times graced with thy 
appearance ; but since, I have never been able to set eyes 
upon thee till now ; but have wandered at my own dis- 


The Young Shepherd. 75 

cretion, to myself a blind guide, erring up and down the 
world, wanting thee.” 

Then Athene cleared his eyes, and he knew the ground 
on which he stood to be Ithaca, and that cave to be the 
same which the people of Ithaca had in former times made 
sacred to the sea-nymphs, and where he himself had done 
sacrifices to them a thousand times ; and full in his view 
stood Mount Nerytus with all his woods : so that now he 
knew for a certainty that he was arrived in his own 
country ; and with the delight which he felt, he could not 
forbear stooping down and kissing the soil. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


The Change from a King to a Beggar. — Eum^eus and the 
Herdsmen. — Telemachus. 

Not long did Athene suffer him to indulge vain trans- 
ports ; but briefly recounting to him the events which had 
taken place in Ithaca during his absence, she showed him 
that his way to his wife and throne did not lie so open, 
but that before he were reinstated in the secure possession 
of them he must encounter many difficulties. 

His palace, wanting its king, was become the resort of 
insolent and imperious men, the chief nobility of Ithaca 
and of the neighboring isles, who, in the confidence of 
Ulysses being dead, came as suitors to Penelope. 

The queen (it was true) continued single, but was little 
better than a state-prisoner in the power of these men, 
who, under a pretence of waiting her decision, occupied 
the king’s house rather as owners than guests, lording and 
domineering at their pleasure, profaning the palace and 
wasting the royal substance with their feasts and mad riots. 
Moreover, the goddess told him how, fearing the attempts 
of these lawless men upon the person of his young son 
Telemachus, she herself had put it into the heart of the 
prince to go and seek his father in far countries ; how in 
the shape of Mentor she had borne him company in his 
long search ; which, though failing, as she meant it should 
fail, in its first object, had yet had this effect, that through 
hardships he had learned endurance, through experience he 
had gathered wisdom, and wherever his footsteps had been 

76 


Telemachus Seeks his Father. 


77 


he had left such memorials of his worth, that the fame of 
Ulysses’s son was already blown throughout the world; that 
it was now not many days since Telemachus had arrived 
in the island, to the great joy of the queen his mother, who 
had thought him dead, by reason of his long absence, and 
had begun to mourn for him with a grief equal to that 
which she endured for Ulysses : the goddess herself having 
so ordered the course of his adventures that the time of 



his return should correspond with the return of Ulysses, 
that they might together concert measures how to repress 
the power and insolence of those wicked suitors. This 
the goddess told him ; but of the particulars of his son’s 
adventures, of his having been detained in the Delightful 
Island, which his father had so lately left, of Calypso and 
her nymphs, and the many strange occurrences which may 
be read with profit and delight in the history of the 
prince’s adventures, she forbore to tell him as yet, judg- 
ing that he would hear them with greater pleasure from 
the lips of his son, when he should have him in an hour 



78 


The Adventures ot Ulysses. 


of stillness and safety, when their work should be done, 
and none of their enemies left alive to trouble them. 

Then they sat down, the goddess and Ulysses, at the 
foot of a wild olive-tree, consulting how they might with 
safety bring about his restoration. And when Ulysses re- 
volved in his mind how that his enemies were a multitude, 
and he single, he began to despond, and he said, “ I shall die 
an ill death like Agamemnon ; in the threshold of my own 
house I shall perish, like that unfortunate monarch, slain 
by some one of my wife’s suitors.” But then again call- 
ing to mind his ancient courage, he secretly wished that 
Athene would but breathe such a spirit into his bosom as 
she had inflamed him with in the hour of Troy’s destruc- 
tion, that he might encounter with three hundred of those 
impudent suitors at once, and strew the pavements of his 
beautiful palace with their bodies. 

And Athene knew his thoughts, and she said, “ I will 
be strongly with thee, if thou fail not to do thy part. And 
for a sign between us that I will perform my promise, and 
for a token on thy part of obedience, I must change thee, 
that thy person may not be known of men.” 

Then Ulysses bowed his head to receive the divine 
impression, and Athene by her great power changed his 
person so that it might not be known. She changed him 
to appearance into a very old man, yet such a one as by 
his limbs and gait seemed to have been some considerable 
person in his time, and to retain yet some remains of his 
once prodigious strength. Also, instead of those rich 
robes in which king Alcinous had clothed him, she threw 
over his limbs such old and tattered rags as wandering 
beggars usually wear. A staff supported his steps, and a 
scrip hung to his back, such as travelling mendicants use 
to hold the scraps which are given to them at rich men’s 


From a King to a Beggar. 79 

doors. So from a king he became a beggar, as wise 
Tiresias had predicted to him in the shades. 

To complete his humiliation, and to prove his obedience 
by suffering, she next directed him in this beggarly attire 
to go and present himself to his old herdsman, Eumaeus, 
who had the care of his swine and his cattle, and had been 
a faithful steward to him all the time of his absence. 
Then strictly charging Ulysses that he should reveal him- 
self to no man but to his own son, whom she would send 
to him when she saw occasion, the goddess went her way. 

The transformed Ulysses bent his course to the cottage 
of the herdsman ; and, entering in at the front court, 
the dogs, of which Eumaeus kept many fierce ones for the 
protection of the cattle, flew with open mouths upon him, 
as those ignoble animals have often-times an antipathy 
to the sight of anything like a beggar, and would have 
rent him in pieces with their teeth, if Ulysses had not 
had the prudence to let fall his staff, which had chiefly 
provoked their fury, and sat himself down in a careless 
fashion upon the ground ; but for all that some serious 
hurt had certainly been done to him, so raging the dogs 
were, had not the herdsman, whom the barking of the 
dogs had fetched out of the house, with shouting and with 
throwing of stones repressed them. 

He said, when he saw Ulysses, “ Old father, how near 
you were to being torn in pieces by these rude dogs ! I 
should never have forgiven myself, if through neglect of 
mine any hurt had happened to you. But heaven has 
given me so many cares to my portion that I might well 
be excused for not attending to everything : while here I 
lie grieving and mourning for the absence of that majesty 
which once ruled here, and am forced to fatten his swine 
and his cattle for food to evil men, who hate him and who 


8o 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


wish his death; when he perhaps strays up and down 
the world, and has not wherewith to appease hunger, if 
indeed he yet lives (which is a question) and enjoys the 
cheerful light of the sun.” This he said, little thinking 
that he of whom he spoke now stood before him, and that 
in that uncouth disguise and beggarly obscurity was pres- 
ent the hidden majesty of Ulysses. 



Then he had his guest into the house, and set meat and 
drink before him; and Ulysses said, “May Jove and all 
the other gods requite you for the kind speeches and 
hospitable usage which you have shown me ! ” 

Eumaeus made answer, “ My poor guest, if one in much 
worse plight than yourself had arrived here, it were a 
shame to such scanty means as I have, if I had let him 
depart without entertaining him to the best of my ability. 
Poor men, and such as have no houses of their own, are 
by Jove himself recommended to our care. But the cheer 


Eumaeus and the Herdsmen. 


81 


which we that are servants to other men have to bestow 
is but sorry at most, yet freely and lovingly I give it you. 
Indeed, there once ruled here a man, whose return the 
gods have set their faces against, who, if he had been 
suffered to reign in peace and grow old among us, would 
have been kind to me and mine. But he is gone ; and 
for his sake would to God that the whole posterity of 
Helen might perish with her, since in her quarrel so many 
worthies have perished ! But such as your fare is, eat it, 
and be welcome — such lean beasts as are food for poor 
herdsmen. The fattest go to feed the voracious stomachs 
of the queen’s suitors. Shame on their unworthiness ! 
There is no day in which two or three of the noblest of 
the herd are not slain to support their feasts and their 
surfeits.” 

Ulysses gave good ear to his words ; and as he ate his 
meat, he even tore it and rent it with his teeth, for mere 
vexation that his fat cattle should be slain to glut the 
appetites of those godless suitors. And he said, “What 
chief or what ruler is this that thou commendest so highly, 
and sayest that he perished at Troy? I am but a stranger 
in these parts. It may be I have heard of some such in 
my long travels.” 

Eumaeus answered, “Old father, never any one of all 
the strangers that have come to our coast with news of 
Ulysses being alive could gain credit with the queen or 
her son yet. These travellers, to get raiment or a meal, 
will not stick to invent any lie. Truth is not the com- 
modity they deal in. Never did the queen get anything 
of them but lies. She receives all that come graciously, 
hears their stories, inquires all she can, but all ends in 
tears and dissatisfaction. But in God’s name, old father, 
if you have got a tale, make the most on’t, it may gain 


82 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


you a cloak or a coat from somebody to keep you warm ; 
but for him who is the subject of it, dogs and vultures 
long since have torn him limb from limb, or some great 
fish at sea has devoured him, or he lieth with no better 
monument upon his bones than the sea-sand. But for me 
past all the race of men were tears created ; for I never 
shall find so kind a royal master more ; not if my father 
or my mother could come again and visit me from the 
tomb, would my eyes be so blessed, as they should be 
with the sight of him again, coming as from the dead. 
In his last rest my soul shall love him. He is not here, 
nor do I name him as a flatterer, but because I am thank- 
ful for his love and care which he had to me a poor man ; 
and if I knew surely that he were past all shores that 
the sun shines upon, I would invoke him as a deified 
thing.” 

For this saying of Eumaeus the waters stood in Ulysses’s 
eyes, and he said, “ My friend, to say and to affirm posi- 
tively that he cannot be alive is to give too much license 
to incredulity. For, not to speak at random, but with as 
much solemnity as an oath comes to, I say to you that 
Ulysses shall return ; and whenever that day shall be, 
then shall you give to me a cloak and a coat; but till 
then, I will not receive so much as a thread of a garment, 
but rather go naked ; for no less than the gates of hell do 
I hate that man whom poverty can force to tell an untruth. 
Be Jove then witness to my words, that this very year, 
nay, ere this month be fully ended, your eyes shall behold 
Ulysses, dealing vengeance in his own palace upon the 
wrongers of his wife and his son.” 

To give the better credence to his words, he amused 
Eumaeus with a forged story of his life; feigning of him- 
self that he was a Cretan born, and one that went with 


Eumaeus and the Herdsmen. 83 

Idomeneus to the wars of Troy. Also he said that he 
knew Ulysses, and related various passages which he 
alleged to have happened betwixt Ulysses and himself ; 
which were either true in the main, as having really hap- 
pened between Ulysses and some other person, or were so 
like to truth, as corresponding with the known character 
and actions of Ulysses, that Eumaeus’s incredulity was not 
a little shaken. Among other things, he asserted that he 
had lately been entertained in the court of Thesprotia, 
where the king’s son of the country had told him that 
Ulysses had been there but just before him, and was gone 
upon a voyage to the oracle of Jove in Dodona, whence 
he should shortly return, and a ship would be ready by 
the bounty of the Thesprotians to convoy him straight to 
Ithaca. “And in token that what I tell you is true,” said 
Ulysses, “ if your king come not within the period which 
I have named, you shall have leave to give your servants 
commandment to take my old carcass, and throw it head- 
long from some steep rock into the sea, that poor men, 
taking example by me, may fear to lie.” But Eumaeus 
made answer that that should be small satisfaction or 
pleasure to him. 

So while they sat discoursing in this manner, supper 
was served in, and the servants of the herdsman, who had 
been out all day in the fields, came in to supper, and took 
their seats at the fire, for the night was bitter and frosty. 
After supper, Ulysses, who had well eaten and drunken, 
and was refreshed with the herdsman’s good cheer, was 
resolved to try whether his host’s hospitality would extend 
to the lending him a good warm mantle or rug to cover 
him in the night season ; and framing an artful tale for 
the purpose, in a merry mood, filling a cup of Greek wine, 
he thus began : — 


84 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

“ I will tell you a story of your king Ulysses and myself. 
If there is ever a time when a man may have leave to 
tell his own stories, it is when he has drunken too much. 
Strong liquor driveth the fool, and moves even the heart 
of the wise, moves and impels him to sing and to dance, 
and break forth in pleasant laughters, and perchance to 
prefer a speech too which were better kept in. When the 
heart is open, the tongue will be. stirring. But you shall 
hear. We led our powers to ambush once under the walls 
of Troy.” 

The herdsmen crowded about him eager to hear any- 
thing which related to their king Ulysses and the wars of 
Troy, and thus he went on : 

“ I remember, Ulysses and Menelaus had the direction 
of that enterprise, and they were pleased to join me with 
them in the command. I was at that time in some repute 
among men, though fortune has played me a trick since, 
as you may perceive. But I was somebody in those times, 
and could do something. Be that as it may, a bitter freez- 
ing night it was, such a night as this ; the air cut like steel, 
and the sleet gathered on our shields like crystal. There 
were some twenty of us, that lay close crouched down 
among the reeds and bulrushes that grew in the moat 
that goes round the city. The rest of us made tolerable 
shift, for every man had been careful to bring with him a 
good cloak or mantle to wrap over his armor and keep 
himself warm ; but I, as it chanced, had left my cloak 
behind me, as not expecting that the night would prove 
so cold ; or rather I believe because I had at that time a 
brave suit of new armor on, which, being a soldier, and 
having some of the soldier’s vice about me — vanity — I 
was not willing should be hidden under a cloak; but I 
paid for my indiscretion with my sufferings, for with the 


Eumasus and the Herdsmen. 85 

inclement night, and the wet of the ditch in which we lay, 
I was well-nigh frozen to death ; and when I could endure 
no longer, I jogged Ulysses who was next to me, and had 
a nimble ear, and made known my case to him, assuring 
him that I must inevitably perish. He answered in a low 
whisper, ‘ Hush, lest any Greek should hear you, and take 
notice of your softness.’ Not a word more he said, but 
showed as if he had no pity for the plight I was in. But 
he was as considerate as he was brave ; and even then, as 
he lay with his head reposing upon his hand, he was medi- 
tating how to relieve me, without exposing my weakness 
to the soldiers. At last, raising up his head, he made as if 
he had been asleep, and said, ‘ Friends, I have been warned 
in a dream to send to the fleet to king Agamemnon for a 
supply, to recruit our numbers, for we are not sufficient 
for this enterprise ’ ; and they believing him, one Thoas 
was despatched on that errand, who departing, for more 
speed, as Ulysses had foreseen, left his upper garment 
behind him, a good warm mantle, to which I succeeded, 
and by the help of it got through the night with credit. 
This shift Ulysses made for one in need, and would to 
heaven that I had now that strength in my limbs which 
made me in those days to be accounted fit to be a leader 
under Ulysses ! I should not then want the loan of a 
cloak or a mantle, to wrap about me and shield my old 
limbs from the night air.” 

The tale pleased the herdsmen ; and Eumaeus, who 
more than all the rest was gratified to hear tales of 
Ulysses, true or false, said that for his story he deserved 
a mantle, and a night’s lodging, which he should have ; 
and he spread for him a bed of goat and sheep skins by 
the fire; and the seeming beggar, who was indeed the 
true Ulysses, lay down and slept under that poor roof, 


86 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

in that abject disguise to which the will of Athene had 
subjected him. 

When morning was come, Ulysses made offer to depart, 
as if he were not willing to burden his host’s hospitality 
any longer, but said that he would go and try the human- 
ity of the townsfolk, if any there would bestow upon him 
a bit of bread or a cup of drink. Perhaps the queen’s 
suitors, he said, out of their full feasts, would bestow 
a scrap on him ; for he could wait at table, if need were, 
and play the nimble serving-man ; he could fetch wood, he 
said, or build a? fire, prepare roast meat or boiled, mix the 
wine with water, or do any of those offices which recom- 
mended poor -men like him to services in great men’s 
houses. 

“Alas! poor guest,” said Eumaeus, “you know not 
what you speak. What should so poor and old a man 
as you do at the suitors’ tables? Their light minds are 
not given to such grave servitors. They must have 
youths, richly tricked out in flowing vests, with curled 
hair, like so many of Jove’s cup-bearers, to fill out the 
wine to them as they sit at table, and to shift their 
trenchers. Their gorged insolence would but despise 
and make a mock at thy age. Stay here. Perhaps the 
queen, or Telemachus, hearing of thy arrival, may send 
to thee of their bounty.” 

As he spake these words, the steps of one crossing the 
front court were heard, and a noise of the dogs fawning 
and leaping about as for joy ; by which token Eumaeus 
guessed that it was the prince, who, hearing of a traveller 
being arrived at Eumaeus’s cottage that brought tidings 
of his father, was come to search the truth ; and Eumaeus 
said, “ It is the tread of Telemachus, the son of king 
Ulysses.” Before he could well speak the words, the 


Telemachus. 


87 


prince was at the door, whom Ulysses rising to receive, 
Telemachus would not suffer that so aged a man, as he 
appeared, should rise to do respect to him, but he cour- 
teously and reverently took him by the hand, and inclined 
his head to him, as if he had surely known that it was his 
father indeed ; but Ulysses covered his eyes with his 
hands, that he might not show the waters which stood in 
them. And Telemachus said, “ Is this the man who can 
tell us tidings of the king my father?” 

“ He brags himself to be a Cretan born,” said Eumaeus, 
“ and that he has been a soldier and a traveller, but whether 
he speak the truth or not he alone can tell. But what- 
soever he has been, what he is now is apparent. Such as 
he appears, I give him to you ; do what you will with 
him ; his boast at present is that he is at the very best a 
supplicant.” 

“Be he what he may,” said Telemachus, “I accept 
him at your hands. But where I should bestow him I 
know not, seeing that in the palace his age would not 
exempt him from the scorn and contempt which my 
mother’s suitors in their light minds would be sure to 
fling upon him : a mercy if he escaped without blows ; 
for they are a company of evil men, whose profession is 
wrongs and violence.” 

Ulysses answered : “ Since it is free for any man to 
speak in presence of your greatness, I must say that my 
heart puts on a wolfish inclination to tear and to devour, 
hearing your speech, that these suitors should with such 
injustice rage, where you should have the rule solely. 
What should the cause be? Do you wilfully give way 
to their ill manners ? Or has your government been such 
as has procured ill-will towards you from your people? 
Or do you mistrust your kinsfolk and friends in such sort, 


88 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

as, without trial, to decline their aid ? A man’s kindred 
are they that he might trust to when extremities run 
high.” 

Telemachus replied, “ The kindred of Ulysses are few. 
I have no brothers to assist me in the strife ; but the 
suitors are powerful in kindred and friends. The house 
of old Arcesius has had this fate from the heavens, that 
from old it still has been supplied with single heirs. 
To Arcesius, Laertes only was born; from Laertes de- 
scended only Ulysses; from Ulysses I alone have sprung, 
whom he left so young that for me never comfort arose 
to him. But the end of all rests in the hands of the 
gods.” 

Then Eumseus departing to see to some necessary 
business of his herds, Athene took a woman’s shape, and 
stood in the entry of the door, and was seen to Ulysses, 
but by his son she was not seen, for the presences of the 
gods are invisible save to those to whom they will to reveal 
themselves. Nevertheless, the dogs which were about 
the door saw the goddess, and durst not bark, but went 
crouching and licking of the dust for fear. And giving 
signs to Ulysses that the time was now come in which 
he should make himself known to his son, by her great 
power she changed back his shape into the same which it 
was before she transformed him ; and Telemachus, who 
saw the change, but nothing of the manner by which it 
was effected, only he saw the appearance of a king in 
the vigor of his age where but just now he had seen a 
worn and decrepit beggar, was struck with fear, and said, 
“ Some god has done this house this honor,” and he 
turned away his eyes, and would have worshipped. But 
his father permitted not, but said, “ Look better at me. 
I am no deity, why put you upon me the reputation of 


Telemachus. 


89 


godhead ? I am no more but thy father : I am even he. 
I am that Ulysses by reason of whose absence thy youth 
has been exposed to such wrongs from injurious men.” 

Then kissed he his son, nor could any longer refrain 
those tears which he had held under such mighty restraint 
before, though they would ever be forcing themselves 
out in spite of him ; but now, as if their sluices had burst, 
they came out like rivers, pouring upon the warm cheeks 
of his son. Nor yet by all these violent arguments could 
Telemachus be persuaded to believe that it was his father, 
but he said some deity had taken that shape to mock him ; 
for he affirmed that it was not in the power of any man, 
who is sustained by mortal food, to change his shape so 
in a moment from age to youth : “for but now,” said he, 
“ you were all wrinkles, and were old, and now you look 
as the gods are pictured.” 

His father replied : “ Admire, but fear not, and know 
me to be at all parts substantially thy father, who in the 
inner powers of his mind, and the unseen workings of a 
father’s love to thee, answers to his outward shape and 
pretence ! There shall no more Ulysseses come here. I 
am he that after twenty years’ absence, and suffering a 
world of ill, have recovered at last the sight of my coun- 
try earth. It was the will of Athene that I should be 
changed as you saw me. She put me thus together ; she 
puts together or takes to pieces whom she pleases. It is 
in the law of her free power to do itt sometimes to show 
her favorites under a cloud, and poor, and again to restore 
to them their ornaments. The gods raise and throw down 
men with ease.” 

Then Telemachus could hold out no longer, but he gave 
way now to a full belief and persuasion of that which for 
joy at first he could not credit, that it was indeed his true 


9 ° 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 


and very father that stood before him ; and they embraced, 
and mingled their tears. 

Then said Ulysses, “ Tell me who these suitors are, what 
are their numbers, and how stands the queen thy mother 
affected to them ? ” 

“She bears them still in expectation,” said Telemachus, 
“ which she never means to fulfil, that she will accept the 
hand of some one of them in second nuptials ; for she 
fears to displease them by an absolute refusal. So from 
day to day she lingers them on with hope, which they are 
content to bear the deferring of, while they have entertain- 
ment at free cost in our palace.” 

Then said Ulysses, “ Reckon up their numbers that we 
may know their strength and ours, if we having none but 
ourselves may hope to prevail against them.” 

“ O father,” he replied, “ I have oft-times heard of your 
fame for wisdom, and of the great strength of your arm, 
but the venturous mind which your speeches now indicate 
moves me even to amazement : for in nowise can it consist 
with wisdom or a sound mind that two should try their 
strengths against a host. Nor five, or ten, or twice ten 
strong are these suitors, but many more by much : from 
Dulichium came there fifty and two, they and their ser- 
vants ; twice twelve crossed the seas hither from Samos ; 
from Zacynthus twice ten ; of our native Ithacans, men of 
chief note, are twelve who aspire to the crown of Penel- 
ope ; and all these under one strong roof — a fearful odds 
against two ! My father, there is need of caution, lest the 
cup which your great mind so thirsts to taste of vengeance 
prove bitter to yourself in the drinking. And therefore it 
were well that we should bethink us of some one who 
might assist us in this undertaking.” 

“Thinkest thou,” said his father, “if we had Athene 


Telemachus. 


9 1 


and the king of skies to be our friends, would their suffi- 
ciencies make strong our part ; or must we look out for 
some further aid yet ? ” 

“ They you speak of are above the clouds,” said Telem- 
achus, “ and are sound aids indeed ; as powers that not 
only exceed human, but bear the chiefest sway among the 
gods themselves.” 

Then Ulysses gave directions to his son to go and 
mingle with the suitors, and in nowise to impart his secret 
to any, not even to the queen his mother, but to hold him- 
self in readiness, and to have his weapons and his good 
armor in preparation. And he charged him that when he 
himself should come to the palace, as he meant to follow 
shortly after, and present himself in his beggar’s likeness 
to the suitors, that whatever he should see which might 
grieve his heart, with what foul usage and contumelious 
language soever the suitors should receive his father, com- 
ing in that shape, though they should strike and drag him 
by the heels along the floors, that he should not stir nor 
make offer to oppose them, further than by mild words to 
expostulate with them, until Athene from heaven should 
give the sign which should be the prelude to their destruc- 
tion. And Telemachus, promising to obey his instructions, 
departed ; and the shape of Ulysses fell to what it had 
been before, and he became to all outward appearance a 
beggar, in base and beggarly attire. 


CHAPTER IX. 


The Queen’s Suitors. — The Battle of the Beggars. — The 
Armor taken down. — The Meeting with Penelope. 


From the house of Eumaeus the seeming beggar took 
his way, leaning on his staff, till he reached the palace, 
entering in at the hall where the suitors sat at meat. They 
in the pride of their feasting began to break their jests in 
mirthful manner, when they saw one looking so poor and 
so aged approach. He, who expected no better entertain- 
ment, was nothing moved at their behavior; but, as became 
the character which he had assumed, in a suppliant posture 
crept by turns to every suitor, and held out his hands for 
some charity, with such a natural and beggar-resembling 
grace that he might seem to have practised begging all his 
life ; yet there was a sort of dignity in his most abject 
stoopings, that whoever had seen him would have said, “If 
it had pleased heaven that this poor man had been born 
a king, he would gracefully have filled a throne.” And 
some pitied him, and some gave him alms, as their present 
humors inclined them ; but the greater part reviled him, 
and bade him begone, as one that spoiled their feast ; for 
the presence of misery has this power with it, that, while 
it stays, it can dash and overturn the mirth even of those 
who feel no pity or wish to relieve it : Nature bearing this 
witness of herself in the hearts of the most obdurate. 

Now Telemachus sat at meat with the suitors, and knew 
that it was the king his father who in that shape begged 
an alms ; and when his father came and presented himself 

92 


93 


The Queen’s Suitors. 

before him in turn, as he had done to the suitors one by 
one, he gave him of his own meat which he had in his 
dish, and of his own cup to drink. And the suitors were 
past measure offended to see a pitiful beggar, as they 
esteemed him, to be so choicely regarded by the prince. 

Then Antinous, who was a great lord, and of chief note 
among the suitors, said, “Prince Telemachus does ill to 
encourage these wandering beggars, who go from place to 
place, affirming that they have been some considerable 
persons in their time, filling the ears of such as hearken 
to them with lies, and pressing with their bold feet into 
kings’ palaces. This is some saucy vagabond, some 
travelling Egyptian.’’ 

“ I see,” said Ulysses, “that a poor man should get but 
little at your board ; scarce should he get salt from your 
hands, if he brought his own meat.” 

Lord Antinous, indignant to be answered with such 
sharpness by a supposed beggar, snatched up a stool, 
with which he smote Ulysses where the neck and 
shoulders join. This usage moved not Ulysses ; but in 
his great heart he meditated deep evils to come upon them 
all, which for a time must be kept close, and he went and 
sat himself down in the doorway to eat of that which was 
given him; and he said, “For life or possessions a man 
will fight, but for his belly this man smites. If a poor man 
has any god to take his part, my lord Antinous shall not 
live to be the queen’s husband.” 

Then Antinous raged highly, and threatened to drag 
him by the heels, and to rend his rags about his ears, if he 
spoke another word. 

But the other suitors did in nowise approve of the harsh 
language, nor of the blow which Antinous had dealt ; and 
some of them said, “Who knows but one of the deities 


94 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

goes about hid under that poor disguise ? for in the like- 
ness of poor pilgrims the gods have many times descended 
to try the dispositions of men, whether they be humane or 
impious.” While these things passed, Telemachus sat and 
observed all, but held his peace, remembering the instruc- 
tions of his father. But secretly he waited for the sign 
which Athene was to send from heaven. 

That day there followed Ulysses to the court one of the 
common sort of beggars, Irus by name, one that had re- 
ceived alms beforetime of the suitors, and was their ordi- 
nary sport, when they were inclined, as that day, to give 
way to mirth, to see him eat and drink ; for he had the 
appetite of six men, and was of huge stature and propor- 
tions of body ; yet had in him no spirit nor courage of a 
man. This man, thinking to curry favor with the suitors, 
and recommend himself especially to such a great lord 
as Antinous was, began to revile and scorn Ulysses, put- 
ting foul language upon him, and fairly challenging him 
to fight with the fist. But Ulysses, deeming his railings 
to be nothing more than jealousy and that envious disposi- 
tion which beggars commonly manifest to brothers in their 
trade, mildly besought him not to trouble him, but to enjoy 
that portion which the liberality of their entertainers gave 
him, as he did quietly ; seeing that, of their bounty, there 
was sufficient for all. 

But Irus, thinking that this forbearance in Ulysses was 
nothing more than a sign of fear, so much the more highly 
stormed, and bellowed, and provoked him to fight ; and by 
this time the quarrel had attracted the notice of the suitors, 
who with loud laughters and shouting egged on the dispute ; 
and lord Antinous swore by all the gods it should be a bat- 
tle, and that in that hall the strife should be determined. 
To this the rest of the suitors with violent clamors acceded, 


The Battle of the Beggars. 95 

and a circle was made for the combatants, and a fat goat 
was proposed as the victor’s prize, as at the Olympic or 
the Pythian games. 

Then Ulysses, seeing no remedy, or being not unwilling 
that the suitors should behold some proof of that strength 
which ere long in their own persons they were to taste of, 
stripped himself, and prepared for the combat. But first 



he demanded that he should have fair play shown him ; 
that none in that assembly should aid his opponent, or take 
part against him, for, being an old man, they might easily 
crush him with their strengths. Arid Telemachus passed 
his word that no foul play should be shown him, but that 
each party should be left to their own unassisted strengths, 
and to this he made Antinous and the rest of the suitors 
swear. 

But when Ulysses had laid aside his garments, and was 
bare to the waist, all the beholders admired at the goodly 
sight of his large shoulders, being of such exquisite shape 



The Adventures of Ulysses. 


96 

and whiteness, and at his great and brawny bosom, and 
the youthful strength which seemed to remain in a man 
thought so old; and they said, “What limbs and what 
sinews he has ! ” and coward fear seized on the mind of 
that vast beggar Irus, and he dropped his threats, and his 
big words, and would have fled, but lord Antinous stayed 
him, and threatened him that if he declined the combat, he 
would put him in a ship, and land him on the shores where 
king Echetus reigned, the roughest tyrant which at that 
time the world contained, and who had that antipathy to 
rascal beggars, such as he, that when any landed on his 
coast he would crop their ears and noses and give them to 
the dogs to tear. So Irus, in whom fear of king Echetus 
prevailed above the fear of Ulysses, addressed himself to 
the fight. 

But Ulysses, provoked to be engaged in so odious a strife 
with a fellow of his base conditions, and loathing longer 
to be made a spectacle to entertain the eyes of his foes, 
with one blow, which he struck him beneath the ear, so 
shattered the teeth and jawbone of this soon baffled coward 
that he laid him sprawling in the dust, with small stomach 
or ability to renew the contest. Then raising him on his 
feet, he led him bleeding and sputtering to the door, and 
put his staff into his hand, and bade him go use his com- 
mand upon dogs and swine, but not presume himself to be 
lord of the guests another time, nor of the beggary ! 

The suitors applauded in their vain minds the issue of 
the contest, and rioted in mirth at the expense of poor 
Irus, who they vowed should be forthwith embarked, 
and sent to king Echetus ; and they bestowed thanks on 
Ulysses for ridding the court of that unsavory morsel, as 
they called him ; but in their inward souls they would not 
have cared if Irus had been victor, and Ulysses had taken 


The Battle of the Beggars. 


97 


the foil, but it was mirth to them to see the beggars fight. 
In such pastimes and light entertainments the day wore 
away. 

When evening was come, the suitors betook themselves 
to music and dancing. And Ulysses leaned his back 
against a pillar from which certain lamps hung which 
gave light to the dancers, and he made show of watching 
the dancers, but very different thoughts were in his head. 
And, as he stood near the lamps, the light fell upon his 
head, which was thin of hair and bald, as an old man’s. 
And Eurymachus, a suitor, taking occasion from some 
words which were spoken before, scoffed, and said, “ Now 
I know for a certainty that some god lurks under the poor 
and beggarly appearance of this man ; for, as he stands by 
the lamps, his sleek head throws beams around it, like as 
it were a glory.” And another said, “ He passes his time, 
too, not much unlike the gods, lazily living exempt from 
labor, taking offerings of men.” “ I warrant,” said Eurym- 
achus again, “ he could not raise a fence or dig a ditch 
for his livelihood, if a man would hire him to work in a 
garden.” 

“ I wish,” said Ulysses, “ that you who speak this and 
myself were to be tried at any taskwork : that I had a 
good crooked scythe put in my hand, that was sharp and 
strong, and you such another, where the grass grew long- 
est, to be up by daybreak, mowing the meadows till the 
sun went down, not tasting of food till we had finished ; or 
that we were set to plough four acres in one day of good 
glebe land, to see whose furrows were evenest and clean- 
est ; or that we might have one wrestling-bout together ; 
or that in our right hands a good steel-headed lance were 
placed, to try whose blows fell heaviest and thickest upon 

Taken the foil : suffered defeat. Glebe : turfy soil. 

H 


98 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

the adversary’s head-piece. I would cause you such work 
as you should have small reason to reproach me with being 
slack at work. But you would do well to spare me this 
reproach, and to save your strength till the owner of this 
house shall return, till the day when Ulysses shall return, 
when returning he shall enter upon his birthright.” 

This was a galling speech to those suitors, to whom 
Ulysses’s return was indeed the thing which they most 
dreaded ; and a sudden fear fell upon their souls, as if they 
were sensible of the real presence of that man who did in- 
deed stand amongst them, but not in that form as they 
might know- him ; and Eurymachus, incensed, snatched a 
massy cup which stood on a table near and hurled it at the 
head of the supposed beggar, and but narrowly missed the 
hitting of him ; and all the suitors rose, as at once, to 
thrust him out of the hall, which they said his beggarly 
presence and his rude speeches had profaned. But Telem- 
achus cried to them to forbear, and not to presume to lay 
hands upon a wretched man to whom he had promised 
protection. He asked if they were mad, to mix such ab- 
horred uproar with his feasts. He bade them take their 
food and their wine, to sit up or to go to bed at their free 
pleasures, so long as he should give license to that freedom ; 
but why should they abuse his banquet, or let the words 
which a poor beggar spake have power to move their 
spleens so fiercely ? 

They bit their lips and frowned for anger to be checked 
so by a youth; nevertheless from that time they had 
the grace to abstain, either for shame, or that Athene had 
infused into them a terror of Ulysses’s son. 

So that day’s feast was concluded without bloodshed, 
and the suitors, tired with their sports, departed severally 
each man to his apartment. Only Ulysses and Telem- 


The Armor taken Down. 


99 


achus remained. And now Telemachus, by his father’s 
direction, went and brought down into the hall armor and 
lances from the armory ; for Ulysses said, “ On the morrow 
we shall have need of them.” And moreover he said, “If 
any one shall ask why you have taken them down, say 
it is to clean them and scour them from the rust which they 
have gathered since the owner of this house went for Troy.” 
And as Telemachus stood by the armor, the lights were all 
gone out, and it was pitch dark, and the armor gave out 
glistening beams as of fire, and he said to his father, “ The 
pillars of the house are on fire.” And his father said, “It 
is the gods who sit above the stars, and have power to 
make the night as light as the day.” And he took it for 
a good omen. And Telemachus fell to cleaning and sharp- 
ening of the lances. 

Now Ulysses had not seen his wife Penelope in all the 
time since his return ; for the queen did not care to mingle 
with the suitors at their banquets, but, as became one that 
had been Ulysses’s wife, kept much in private, spinning 
and doing her excellent housewiferies among her maids in 
the remote apartments of the palace. Only upon solemn 
days she would come down and show herself to the suitors. 
And Ulysses was filled with a longing desire to see his 
wife again, whom for twenty years he had not beheld, and 
he softly stole through the known passages of his beauti- 
ful house, till he came where the maids were lighting the 
queen through a stately gallery that led to the chamber 
where she slept. . And when the maids saw Ulysses, they 
said, “ It is the beggar who came to the court to-day, about 
whom all that uproar was stirred up in the hall : what does 
he here ? ” But Penelope gave commandment that he should 
be brought before her, for she said, “ It may be that he has 
travelled, and has heard something concerning Ulysses.” 

LfTC. 


IOO 


The Adventures of Ulysses. 

Then was Ulysses right glad to hear himself named by 
his queen, to find himself in nowise forgotten, nor her 
great love toward him decayed in all that time that he had 
been away. And he stood before his queen, and she knew 
him not to be Ulysses, but supposed that he had been some 
poor traveller. And she asked him of what country he 
was. 

He told her (as he had before told Eumaeus) that he was 
a Cretan born, and, however poor and cast down he now 
seemed, no less a man than brother to Idomeneus, who was 
grandson to king Minos ; and though he now wanted 
bread, he had once had it in his power to feast Ulysses. 
Then he feigned how Ulysses, sailing for Troy, was forced 
by stress of weather to put his fleet in at a port of Crete, 
where for twelve days he was his guest, and entertained 
by him with all befitting guest-rites. And he described 
the very garments which Ulysses had on, by which Penel- 
ope knew he had seen her lord. 

In this manner Utysses told his wife many tales of him- 
self, at most but painting, but painting so near to the life 
that the feeling of that which she took in at her ears became 
so strong that the kindly tears ran down her fair cheeks, 
while she thought upon her lord, dead as she thought him, 
and heavily mourned the loss of him whom she missed, 
whom she could not find, though in very deed he stood so 
near her. 

Ulysses was moved to see her weep, but he kept his own 
eyes dry as iron or horn in their lids, putting a bridle upon 
his strong passion, that it should not issue to sight. 

Then told he how he had lately been at the court of 
Thesprotia, and what he had learned concerning Ulysses 
there, in order as he had delivered to Eumaeus ; and Penel- 
ope was wont to believe that there might be a possibility 


Penelope’s Dream. ioi 

of Ulysses being alive, and she said, “I dreamed a dream 
this morning. Methought I had twenty household fowl 
which did eat wheat steeped in water from my hand, and 
there came suddenly from the clouds a crooked-beaked 
hawk, who soused on them and killed them all, trussing 
their necks; then took his flight back up to the clouds. 
And in my dream methought that I wept and made great 



Penelope’s Dream. 


moan for my fowls, and for the destruction which the 
hawk had made ; and my maids came about me to comfort 
me. And in the height of my griefs the hawk came back, 
and lighting upon the beam of my chamber, he said to me in 
a man's voice, which sounded strangely even in my dream, 
to hear a hawk to speak : ‘ Be of good cheer,’ he said, ‘O 
daughter of Icarius! for this is no dream which thou hast 
seen, but that which shall happen to thee indeed. Those 
household fowl, which thou lamentest so without reason, 
are the suitors who devour thy substance, even as thou 


Soused : plunged. 


Trussing : seizing firmly. 



102 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

sawest the fowl eat from thy hand ; and the hawk is thy 
husband, who is coming to give death to the suitors.’ And 
I awoke, and went to see to my fowls if they were alive, 
whom I found eating wheat from their troughs, all well 
and safe as before my dream.” 

Then said Ulysses, “ This dream can endure no other 
interpretation than that which the hawk gave to it, who 
is your lord, and who is coming quickly to effect all that 
his words told you.” 

“Your words,” she said, “my old guest, are so sweet 
that would you sit and please me with your speech, my 
ears would never let my eyes close their spheres for very 
joy of your discourse; but none that is merely mortal can 
live without the death of sleep, so the gods who are with- 
out death themselves have ordained it, to keep the mem- 
ory of our mortality in our minds, while we experience 
that as much as we live we die every day ; in which con- 
sideration I will ascend my bed, which I have nightly 
watered with my tears since he that was my joy departed 
for that bad city” — she so speaking because she could 
not bring her lips to name the name of Troy so much 
hated. So for that night they parted, Penelope to her 
bed and Ulysses to his son, and to the armor and the 
lances in the hall, where they sat up all night cleaning 
and watching by the armor. 


CHAPTER X. 


The Madness from Above. — The Bow of Ulysses. — The 
Slaughter. — The Conclusion. 

When daylight appeared, a tumultuous concourse of the 
suitors again filled the hall ; and some wondered, and 
some' inquired what meant that glittering store of armor 
and lances which lay in heaps by the entry of the door ; 
and to all that asked Telemachus made reply that he had 
caused them to be taken down to cleanse them, of the rust 
and of the stain which they had contracted by lying so 
long unused, even ever since his father went for Troy; 
and with that answer their minds were easily satisfied. 
So to their feasting and vain rioting again they fell. 
Ulysses, by Telemachus’s order, had a seat and a mess 
assigned him in the doorway, and he had his eye ever on 
the lances. And it moved gall in some of the great ones 
there present to have their feast still dulled with the soci- 
ety of that wretched beggar, as they deemed him ; and 
they reviled and spurned at him with their feet. 

Only there was one Philaetius, who had something of a 
better nature than the rest, that spake kindly to him, and 
had his age in respect. He, coming up to Ulysses, took 
him by the hand with a kind of fear, as if touched exceed- 
ingly with imagination of his great worth, and said thus to 
him : “ Hail, father stranger ! my brows have sweat to see 
the injuries which you have received; and my eyes have 
broke forth in tears when I have only thought, that, such 
being often-times the lot of worthiest men, to this plight 

103 


104 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

Ulysses may be reduced, and that he now may wander 
from place to place as you do : for such, who are com- 
pelled by need to range here and there, and have no firm 
home to fix thvir feet upon, God keeps them in this earth, 
as under water; so are they kept down and depressed. 
And a dark thread is sometimes spun in the fates of 
kings.” 

At this bare likening of the beggar to Ulysses, Athene 
from heaven made the suitors for foolish joy to go mad, 
and roused them to such a laughter as would never stop : 
they laughed without power of ceasing ; their eyes stood 
full of tears for violent joys. But fears and horrible mis- 
givings succeeded ; and one among them stood up and 
prophesied: “Ah, wretches!” he said, “what madness 
from heaven has seized you, that you can laugh ? see you 
not that your meat drops blood ? a night, like the night of 
death, wraps you about; you shriek without knowing it; 
your eyes thrust forth tears ; the fixed walls, and the beam 
that bears the whole house up, fall blood ; ghosts choke 
up the entry ; full is the hall with apparitions of murdered 
men ; under your feet is hell ; the sun falls from heaven, 
and it is midnight at noon.” But, like men whom the gods 
had infatuated to their destruction, they mocked at his 
fears ; and Eurymachus said, “ This man is surely mad : 
conduct him forth into the market-place ; set him in the 
light; for he dreams that ’tis night within the house.” 

But Theoclymenus (for that was the prophet’s name), 
whom Athene had graced with a prophetic spirit, that 
he, foreseeing, might avoid the destruction which awaited 
them, answered, and said, “ Eurymachus, I will not require 
a guide of thee : for I have eyes and ears, the use of both 
my feet, and a sane mind within me ; and with these I will 
go forth of the doors, because I know the imminent evils 


The Bow of Ulysses. 


io 5 


which await all you that stay, by reason of this poor guest 
who is a favorite with all the gods.” So saying, he turned 
his back upon those inhospitable men, and went away 
home, and never returned to the palace. 

These words which he spoke were not unheard by 
Telemachus, who kept still his eye upon his father, expect- 
ing fervently when he would give the sign which was to 
precede the slaughter of the suitors. 

They, dreaming of no such thing, fell sweetly to their 
dinner, as joying in the great store of banquet which was 
heaped in full tables about them ; but there reigned not 
a bitterer banquet planet in all heaven than that which 
hung over them this day by secret destination of Athene. 

There was a bow which Ulysses left when he went for 
Troy. It had lain by since that time, out of use and 
unstrung, for no man had strength to draw that bow, save 
Ulysses. So it had remained, as a monument of the great 
strength of its master. This bow, with the quiver of 
arrows belonging thereto, Telemachus had brought down 
from the armory on the last night along with the lances ; 
and now Athene, intending to do Ulysses an honor, put 
it into the mind of Telemachus to propose to the suitors to 
try who was strongest to draw that bow ; and he promised 
that to the man who should be able to draw that bow his 
mother should be given in marriage — Ulysses’s wife the 
prize to him who should bend the bow of Ulysses. 

There was great strife and emulation stirred up among 
the suitors at those words of the prince Telemachus. 
And to grace her son’s words, and to confirm the promise 
which he had made, Penelope came and showed herself 
that day to the suitors; and Athene made her that she 
appeared never so comely in their sight as on that day, 
and they were inflamed with the beholding of so much 


io 6 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

beauty, proposed as the price of so great manhood ; and 
they cried out that if all those heroes who sailed to Colchis 
for the rich purchase of the golden-fleeced ram had seen 
earth’s richer prize, Penelope, they would not have made 
their voyage, but would have vowed their valors and their 
lives to her, for she was at all parts faultless. 

And she said, “ The gods have taken my beauty from 
me, since my lord went for Troy.” But Telemachus 
willed his mother to depart and not be present at that 
contest; for he said, “It may be, some rougher strife 
shall chance of this than may be expedient for a woman 
to witness.” And she retired, she and her maids, and 
left the hall. 

Then the bow was brought into the midst, and a mark 
was set up by prince Telemachus; and lord Antinous, as 
the chief among the suitors, had the first offer; and he 
took the bow, and, fitting an arrow to the string, he strove 
to bend it, but not with all his might and main could he 
once draw together the ends of that tough bow ; and when 
he found how vain a thing it was to endeavor to draw 
Ulysses’s bow, he desisted, blushing for shame and for 
mere anger. Then Eurymachus adventured, but with no 
better success ; but as it had torn the hands of Antinous, 
so did the bow tear and strain his hands, and marred his 
delicate fingers, yet could he not once stir the string. 
Then called he to the attendants to bring fat and unctuous 
matter, which melting at the fire, he dipped the bow 
therein, thinking to supple it and make it more pliable; 
but not with all the helps of art could he succeed in 
making it to move. After him Liodes, and Amphinomus, 
and Polybus, and Eurynomus, and Polyctorides essayed 
their strength; but not any one of them, or of the rest 
of those aspiring suitors, had any better luck ; yet not the 


The Bow of Ulysses. 


107 

meanest of them there but thought himself well worthy of 
Ulysses’s wife, though to shoot with Ulysses’s bow the 
completest champion among them was by proof found too 
feeble. 

Then Ulysses prayed that he might have leave to try; 
and immediately a clamor was raised among the suitors, 
because of his petition, and they scorned and swelled with 
rage at his presumption, and that a beggar should seek to 
contend in a game of such noble mastery. But Telem- 
achus ordered that the bow should be given him, and that 
he should have leave to try, since they had failed; “for,” 
he said, “the bow is mine, to give or to withhold; ” and 
none durst gainsay the prince. 

Then Ulysses gave a sign to his son, and he commanded 
the doors of the hall to be made fast, and all wondered at 
his words, but none could divine the cause. And Ulysses 
took the bow in his hands, and before he essayed to bend 
it, he surveyed it at all parts, to see whether by long lying 
by, it had contracted any stiffness which hindered the 
drawing; and as he was busied in the curious surveying 
of his bow, some of the suitors mocked him, and said, 
“ Past doubt this man is a right cunning archer, and knows 
his craft well. See how he turns it over and over, and looks 
into it, as if he could see through the wood ! ” And others 
said, “ We wish some one would tell out gold into our laps 
but for so long a time as he shall be in drawing of that 
string.” 

But when he had spent some little time in making proof 
of the bow, and had found it to be in good plight, like as 
a harper in tuning of his harp draws out a string, with 
such ease or much more did Ulysses draw to the head the 
string of his own tough bow, and in letting of it go, it 
twanged with such a shrill noise as a swallow makes when 


108 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

it sings through the air ; which so much amazed the suitors 
that their colors came and went, and the skies gave out a 
noise of thunder, which at heart cheered Ulysses, for he 
knew that now his long labors by the disposal of the fates 
drew to an end. Then fitted he an arrow to the bow, and 
drawing it to the head, he sent it right to the mark which 
the prince had set up. 

Which done, he said to Telemachus, “You have got no 
disgrace yet by your guest, for I have struck the mark I 
shot at, and gave myself no such trouble in teasing the 
bow with fat and fire as these men did, but have made 
proof that my strength is not impaired, nor my age so 
weak and contemptible as these were pleased to think it. 
But come, the day going down calls us to supper ; after 
which succeed poem and harp, and all delights which use 
to crown princely banquetings.” 

So saying, he beckoned to his son, who straight girt his 
sword to his side, and took one of the lances (of which 
there lay great store from the armory) in his hand, and 
armed at all points advanced towards his father. 

The upper rags which Ulysses wore fell from his shoul- 
der, and his own kingly likeness returned, when he rushed 
to the great hall door with bow and quiver full of shafts, 
which down at his feet he poured, and in bitter words pre- 
signified his deadly intent to the suitors. “ Thus far,” he 
said, “ this contest has been decided harmless : now for us 
there rests another mark, harder to hit, but which my hands 
shall essay notwithstanding, if Phoebus, god of archers, be 
pleased to give me the mastery.” 

With that he let fly a deadly arrow at Antinous, which 
pierced him in the throat, as he was in the act of lifting a 
cup of wine to his month. Amazement seized the suitors, 

Presignijied : showed beforehand. 


The Slaughter. 


109 

as their great champion fell dead, and they raged highly 
against Ulysses, and said that it should prove the dearest 
shaft which he ever let fly, for he had slain a man whose 
like breathed not in any part of the kingdom ; and they 
flew to their arms, and would have seized the lances, but 
Athene struck them with dimness of sight that they went 
erring up and down the hall, not knowing where to find 
them. Yet so infatuated were they by the displeasure of 
heaven that they did not see the imminent peril which 
impended over them; but every man believed that this 
accident had happened beside the intention of the doer. 
Fools ! to think by shutting their eyes to evade destiny, or 
that any other cup remained for them but that which their 
great Antinous had tasted ! 

Then Ulysses revealed himself to all in that presence, and 
that he was the man whom they held to be dead at Troy, 
whose palace they had usurped, whose wife in his lifetime 
they had sought in impious marriage, and that for this rea- 
son destruction was come upon them. And he dealt his 
deadly arrows among them, and there was no avoiding him, 
nor escaping from his horrid person ; and Telemachus by 
his side plied them thick with those murderous lances from 
which there was no retreat, till fear itself made them valiant, 
and danger gave them eyes to understand the peril. 

Then they which had swords drew them, and some with 
shields, that could find them, and some with tables and 
benches snatched up in haste, rose in a mass to overwhelm 
and crush those two : yet they singly bestirred themselves 
like men, and defended themselves against that great 
host; and through tables, shields, and all, right through, 
the arrows of Ulysses clove, and the irresistible lances of 
Telemachus; and many lay dead, and all had wounds. 
And Athene, in the likeness of a bird, sat upon the beam 


no The Adventures of Ulysses. 

which went across the hall, clapping her wings with a 
fearful noise: and sometimes the great bird would fly 
among them, cuffing at the swords and at the lances, and 
up and down the hall would go, beating her wings, and 
troubling everything, that it was frightful to behold; 
and it frayed the blood from the cheeks of those heaven- 
hated suitors. But to Ulysses and his son she appeared 
in her own divine similitude, with her snake-fringed shield, 



a goddess armed, fighting their battles. Nor did that 
dreadful pair desist till they had laid all their foes at their 
feet. 

At their feet they lay in shoals : like fishes when the 
fishermen break up their nets, so they lay gasping and 
sprawling at the feet of Ulysses and his son. And 
Ulysses remembered the prediction of Tiresias, which 
said that he was to perish by his own guests, unless he 
slew those who knew him not. 

Then certain of the queen’s household went up, and told 
Penelope what had happened ; and how her lord Ulysses 



Conclusion. 


1 1 1 


was come home, and had slain the suitors. But she gave 
no heed to their words, but thought that some frenzy 
possessed them, or that they mocked her; for it is the 
property of such extremes of sorrow as she had felt not 
to believe when any great joy cometh. And she rated and 
chid them exceedingly for troubling her. But they the 
more persisted in their asseverations of the truth of what 
they had affirmed ; and some of them had seen the 
slaughtered bodies of the suitors dragged forth of the hall. 
And they said, “ That poor guest whom you talked with 
last night was Ulysses.” 

Then she was yet more fully persuaded that they 
mocked her, and she wept. But they said, “ This thing is 
true which we have told. We sat within, in an inner room 
in the palace, and the doors of the hall were shut on us, 
but we heard the cries and the groans of the men that 
were killed, but saw nothing, till at length your son called 
to us to come in, and entering we saw Ulysses standing in 
the midst of the slaughtered.” But she, persisting in her 
unbelief, said that it was some god which had deceived 
them to think it was the person of Ulysses. 

By this time Telemachus and his father had cleansed 
their hands from the slaughter, and were come to where 
the queen was talking with those of her household ; and 
when she saw Ulysses, she stood motionless, and had no 
power to speak, sudden surprise and joy and fear and many 
passions so strove within her. Sometimes she was clear 
that it was her husband that she saw, and sometimes the 
alteration which twenty years had made in his person (yet 
that was not much) perplexed her that she knew not what 
to think, and for joy she could not believe, and yet for joy 
she would not but believe; and, above all, that sudden 
change from a beggar to a king troubled her, and wrought 


1 12 The Adventures of Ulysses. 

uneasy scruples in her mind. But Telemachus, seeing her 
strangeness, blamed her, and called her an ungentle and 
tyrannous mother ; and said that she showed a too great 
curiousness of modesty to abstain from embracing his 
father, and to have doubts of his person, when to all 
present it was evident that he was the very real and true 
Ulysses. 



Penelope and Ulysses: 


Then she mistrusted no longer, but ran and fell upon 
Ulysses’s neck, and said, “ Let not my husband be angry, 
that I held off so long with strange delays ; it is the gods, 
who severing us for so long time, have caused this un- 
seemly distance in me. If Menelaus’s wife had used half 
my caution, she would never have taken so freely to a 
stranger ; and she might have spared us all these plagues 
which have come upon us through her shameless deed.” 

The words with which Penelope excused herself wrought 
more affection in Ulysses than if upon a first sight she had 


Conclusion. 


it 3 

given up herself implicitly to his embraces ; and he wept 
for joy to possess a wife so discreet, so answering to his 
own staid mind, that had a depth of wit proportioned to 
his own, and one that held chaste virtue at so high a price. 
And he thought the possession of such a one cheaply pur- 
chased with the loss of all Circe’s delights and Calypso’s 
immortality of joys; and his long labors and his severe 
sufferings past seemed as nothing, now they were crowned 
with the presence of his virtuous and true wife Penelope. 
And as sad men at sea, whose ship has gone to pieces nigh 
shore, swimming for their lives, all drenched in foam and 
brine, crawl up to some poor patch of land, which they 
take possession of with as great a joy as if they had the 
world given them in fee, with such delight did this chaste 
wife cling to her lord restored, and once again clasp a 
living Ulysses. 

So from that time the land had rest from the suitors. 
And the happy Ithacans with songs and solemn sacrifices 
of praise to the gods celebrated the return of Ulysses ; for 
he that had been so long absent was returned to wreak 
the evil upon the heads of the doers ; in the place where 
they had done the evil, there wreaked he his vengeance 
upon them. 


NOTE. 


After reading this book it will be both interesting and helpful 
to read the story in full, as told either in Pope’s, Palmer’s, or 
Butcher and Lang’s translation of the Odyssey. And in order to 
do this intelligently, as Lamb did not follow the order of events as 
related by Homer, but in their natural sequence, the reading should 
proceed as follows : — 

For Chapters 1-3 of Lamb’s Cruise of Ulysses, see Odyssey , Books 
IX-XII. 

Chapters 4-5 of Lamb’s Cruise of Ulysses, see Odyssey , Book 
I, lines 55-120, and Book V. 

Chapter 6 of Lamb’s Cruise of Ulysses, see Odyssey , Books 
VI-VIL 

Chapter 7 of Lamb’s Cruise of Ulysses, see Odyssey , Books 
VIII, XIII. 

Chapter 8 of Lamb’s Cruise of Ulysses, see Odyssey, Books 
XIV-XVI. 

Chapter 9 of Lamb’s Cruise of Ulysses, see Odyssey , Books 
XVII-XIX. 

Chapter 10 of Lamb’s Cruise of Ulysses, see Odyssey , Books 
XX-XXIV. 


“You like the Odyssey ?” wrote Lamb to Bernard Barton. “ Did 
you ever read my Adventures of Ulysses, founded on Chapman’s 
old translation — for children or men? Chapman is divine, and 
my abridgment has not quite emptied him of his divinity.” 

Lamb says in the preface : “This work treats of the conduct 
and sufferings of Ulysses, the father of Telemachus. The picture 
which it exhibits is that of a brave man struggling with adversity ; 


14 


Note. 


1 T 5 


by a wise use of events, and with an inimitable presence of mind 
under difficulties, forcing out a way for himself through the severest 
trials to which human life can be exposed ; with enemies natural 
and preternatural surrounding him on all sides. The agents in this 
tale, besides men and women, are giants, enchanters, sirens ; things 
which denote external force or internal temptations, the twofold 
danger which a wise fortitude must expect to encounter in its course 
through this world. The fictions contained in it will be found to com- 
prehend some of the most admired inventions of Grecian mythology. 

“ The groundwork of the story is as old as the Odyssey, but the 
moral and the coloring are comparatively modern. By avoiding 
the prolixity which marks the speeches and the descriptions in 
Homer, I have gained a rapidity to the narration which I hope 
will make it more attractive and give it more the air of a romance 
to young readers.” 

The text here given is from “The Works of Charles Lamb,” 
edited by Percy Fitzgerald. London : E. Moxon & Co., 1876. 

Lamb (born in London, 1775; died, 1834) was educated partly at Christ’s 
Hospital, an institution founded by King Edward VI. Its scholars still wear 
the costume of the period when it was founded, and in the streets of London 
one often meets a boy wearing no cap, a long blue coat reaching below the 
knees, yellow stockings, and low shoes with metal buckles; this is a boy of 
Christ’s Hospital. Lamb did not qualify himself for the clergy, for which he 
was unfitted by his unsurmountable stammer. The greater part of his life was 
spent in poverty, and was devoted to the care of his sister Mary, who was 
subject to fits of insanity all her life. He renounced his hope of marriage for 
her sake. He began to write at twenty, and fourteen years later achieved 
success with the Tales from Shakespeare , Mary writing the Comedies, and 
Lamb the Tragedies. They wrote two other books for children, — Mrs. 
Leicester's School and Poetry for Children. Then followed from his own pen 
The Adventures of Ulysses. Wider literary fame came later through his Essays 
of Elia and other books. Perhaps the best biography of Lamb is to be found 
in his writings; they are chiefly personal confidences which make his individu- 
ality intensely familiar to the reader, and his letters are among the most fasci- 
nating to be found in our language. 


INDEX AND BRIEF EXPLANATION OF 
PROPER NAMES. 


The. Key to the Pronunciation will be found at the Bottom of 

Each Page. 

Acheron, ak'e-ron. One of the rivers of hell, which the ghosts are obliged to pass 
over, but they never come back. 

Achilles, a-kil'ez. King of Thessaly. Son of Peleus and Thetis. His mother 
dipped him in the Styx to make him invulnerable, which he was in all parts, 
except his heel, by which she held him. 

iEsea, e-e'a. An island in the Tyrene Sea, where Circe dwelt, and Aurora had her 
lodgings. 

.ffisetes, 8-e'tez. 

jflDgisthus, e-jis'thus. Son of Thyestes and Pelopia, — brought up among shep- 
herds, afterward went to the court of Atreus, whom he slew, as also, later, 
Agamemnon. 

.ffiolus, e'o-lus. God of the winds, and son of Jupiter. 

Agamemnon, a-ga-mem'non. King of Argos and Myanes. Chief of the Grecian 
armies at the siege of Troy. 

Ajax, a'jaks. Son of Telamon. Ulysses having defeated him in fight, he went 
mad and killed himself with the sword he had received from Hector. 

Alcinous, al-sin'o-us. The just king of the island on which Ulysses was 
wrecked. 

Alcmena, alk-me'na. Daughter of Electrion and granddaughter of Perseus. An 
altar was erected to her in the Temple of Hercules. 

Alcmene, alk-me'ne. 

Amphinomus, am-fin'3-mus. One of the suitors for the hand of Penelope. 

Amphion, am-fi'on. Son of Jupiter and Antiope, queen of Thebes, the walls of 
which city he built by the harmony of his lyre. 

Antiphus, an'ti-fus. King of the Laestrygonians. 

Apollo, a-pol'o. Son of Jupiter and Latona, and brother to Diana. Called also 

fat, met, pin, not, tub ; fate, mete, pine, n5te, mute; far, move; fall, nor ; her; oil. 8, o, etc. 
indicate long vowels shortened in unaccented syllables, without loss of their original 
quality. 

1 16 


Index, etc. 117 

Phoebus, because he conducted the chariot of the sun, drawn by four horses. 
The god of poetry, music, and the liberal arts. 

Arcesius, ar-se'shi-us. Grandfather of Ulysses. 

Argo, ar'go. The ship on which the Argonauts sailed to fetch the Golden Fleece. 

Said to be the first vessel that ever sailed the sea. 

Ariadne, a-ri-ad'ne. Daughter of Minos, king of Crete, who helped Theseus out 
of the labyrinth, by means of a ball of thread, after he had killed the Minotaur. 
Athene, a-the'ne. 

Atreus, a'tre-us. Father of Agamemnon. Committed a horrible crime, at which 
the sun was said to have hid its face, and for which all his race was punished. 
Bobtes, bo-5'tez. The constellation of the Little Bear. 

Cadmus, kad'mus. King of Thebes. 

Callirhoe, ka-lir'o-e. A river of Phaeacia. 

Calypso, ka-lip'so. A goddess, daughter of the day, who dwelt in the island of 
Ogygia. 

Castor, kas'tor. Brother of Pollux. Endowed with immortality. 

Ceres, se'rez. 

Charybdis, ka-rib'dis. One of the monsters dwelling by the whirlpools which 
Ulysses had to avoid. 

Cicons, si'konz. A people of Thrace. 

Circe, s6r'se. Daughter of the Sun, a magician and enchantress, who dwelt on an 
island to which she gave her name. 

Clymene, klim'e-ne. 

Clytemnestra, kli-tem-nes'tra. Wife of Agamemnon. 

Cocytus, ko-si'tus. An arm of Styx, the river of hell. 

Colchis, kol'kis. 

Cratis, kra'tis. 

Crete, kret. 

Cyclops, sl'klops. Sons of Neptune and Amphitrite. They had one eye in the 
middle of the forehead. They assisted Vulcan in forging Jove’s thunderbolts. 
Cythera, si-the'ra. An island between Peloponnesus and Crete. Its inhabitants 
worshipped Venus. 

Deiphobus, de-if o-bus. Son of Priam, king of Troy. 

Delos, de'los. An island in the yEgsean Sea. 

Demodocus, de-mod'o-kus. Minstrel at the court of Phaeacia. 

Diana, dl-an'a (or di-a'na). 

Dodona, do-d5'na. A famous Greek oracle. 

Dulichium, do-lik'i-um. An island belonging to the kingdom of Ithaca. 

Echetus, ek'e-tus. 

Ephialtes, ef-i-al'tez. Son of Neptune, of superhuman strength. 

Eryphile, e-rif'i-le. 

Eumaeus, u-me'us. The swineherd of Ulysses. 

Eurus, u'rus. The east wind. 

Eurylochus, u-ril'o-kus. The only companion of Ulysses that did not drink of 
Circe’s cup. 

fat, met, pin, not, tub; fate, mete, pine, note, mute; far, move; fail, nor; her; oil. 


1 1 8 


Index, etc. 


Eurymachus, u-rim'a-kus, 
Eurynomus, u-rin'o-mus. 


| Suitors of Penelope. 


Hades, ha'dez. The house of death. 

Hebe, he'be. Daughter of Jupiter: the cup-bearer of the gods. 

Hercules, hSr'ku-lez. 

Icarius, l-ka'ri-us. Father of Penelope. 

Idomeneus, t-dom'e-nus. Leader of the Cretans in the Trojan War. 

Ino, I'no. 

Ino Leucothea, i'no lu-ko-the'a. A goddess of the sea. 

Iphimedia, if-i-me'di-a. Mother of Otus and Ephialtes. 

Irus, i'rus. The boastful, cowardly beggar at the suitors' table. 

Ismarus, is'ma-rus. The chief city of the Cicons. 

Ithaca, ith'a-ka. An island of Greece, the most fertile in all Asia, where Ulysses 
reigned. 

Jocasta, jo-kas'ta. 

Jove, jov. 

Laertes, la-6r'tez. A king of Ithaca. Father of Ulysses. 

Lsestrygonians, les-tri-go'ni-anz. A rude, savage, cannibal people, of gigantic 
stature, near Phormio, in Italy. 

Lamos, la'mos. A port of the Laestrygonians. 

Latona, la-to'na. Mother of Apollo and Artemis. 

Leda, le'da. Mother of Castor and Pollux. 

Liodes, 11-o'dez. One of Penelope’s suitors. 

Msera, me'ra. 

Malea, ma'le-a. A cape in Greece (see map). 

Megara, meg'-a-ra. 

Menelaus, men-e-la'us. Husband of Helen of Troy, and brother of Agamemnon. 
Mentor, men' tor. Counsellor of Ulysses, and guardian of his son Telemachus. 
Mercury, m6r'ku-ri. The son of Jupiter and Maia. The messenger of the gods. 
Minos, mi'nos. One of the judges of the dead in Hades. King of Crete, etc. 
Naiads, na'yadz. Nymphs or goddesses presiding over rivers and lakes. 
Nausicaa, n&-sik'a-a. The Phaeacian princess. 

Neleus, ne'lus. 

Neoptolemus, ne-op-tol'e-mus. Son of Achilles. 

Neptune, nep'tun (or tshon). The god of the sea. 

Nerytus, ner'i-tus. A mountain in Ithaca. 

Nestor, nes'tor. A Greek hero, famous for his wisdom. 

Notus, no'tus. The south wind. 

Oceanus, o-se'a-nus. 

CEdipus, ed'i-pus. 

Ogygia, o-jij'i-a. The island where Calypso dwelt. 

Olympus, o-lim'pus. A mountain in Thessaly, supposed to be the home of the 
gods. 

Orchomen, 6r'ko-men. A city of Bceotia in Greece. 

Orestes, o-res'tez. Son of Agamemnon. 

fat, met, pin, not, tub; fate, mete, pine, note, mute; far, move; fall, nor; her; oil. 


Index, etc. 


lI 9 

Orion, o-ri'on. A mighty hunter, after death transformed into a constellation. 
Ossa, os'sa. A mountain in Thessaly. 

Otus, o'tus. Brother of Ephialtes. 

Panopeus, pan-5'pus. 

Pelens, pe'lus. Father of Achilles. 

Pelias, pe'li-as. 

Pelion, pe'li-on. A mountain in Thessaly. 

Penelope, pe-nel'6-pe. Ulysses’ wife. 

Perse, pfer'se. 

Phseacia, fe-a'shi-a. 

Phaedra, fe'dra. Daughter of Minos, and wife of Theseus. 

Pieria, pl-e'ri-a. A mountainous tract of Macedonia. 

Pirithous, pi-rith'o-us. Tried to carry off Proserpine, goddess of Hades. Friend 
of Theseus. 

Pleiads, pll'adz. A constellation. 

Pluto, plo'to. The god of hell. Son of Saturn, and brother of Jupiter. 

Pollux, pol'uks. See Castor. 

Polybus, pol'i-bus. One of the suitors of Penelope. 

Polyphemus, pol-i-fe'mus. Son of Neptune. One of the Cyclops. 

Priam, pri'am. 

Procris, pro'kris, 

Proserpine, pros'6r-pin ( or pin). Daughter of Jupiter and Ceres. Stolen by 
Pluto, and kept by him in the nether regions. 

Pylus, pl'lus. 

Pyriphlegethon, pi-ri-fleg'e-thon. A river of the lower world. 

Pytho, pi'tho. Seat of a famous oracle. Was old name of Delphi. 

Samos, sa'mos. An island in the ^Egaean Sea. 

Scylla, sil'a. The monster who dwelt opposite Charybdis. 

Scyros, si'ros. An island in the ^Egaean Sea. 

Sirens, si'renz. Nymphs whose songs charmed all passers-by and lured them 
to destruction. 

Sisyphus, si'si-fus. A wicked king of Corinth. 

Smyrna, sm6r'na. The most important seaport of Asia Minor. 

Solymi, sol'i-mi. Mountains in Lycia of Asia Minor. 

Styx, stiks. A river which goes seven times around hell. The gods who swore 
by Styx never broke their oath. 

Tantalus, tan'ta-lus. 

Telamon, tel'a-mon. Father of Ajax. 

Telemachus, te-lem'a-kus. The son of Ulysses. 

Theban, the'ban. A native of Thebes. 

Thebes, thebz. A famous city of Boeotia. 

Theoclymenus, the-6-klim'e-nus. 

Theseus, the-sus. A famous legendary Athenian king. 

Thesprotia, thes-pr5'shi-a. A district on the coast of Epirus. 

Thetis, the'tis. A goddess of the sea. Mother of Achilles. 

fat, met, pin, not, tub; fate, mete, pine, n5te, mute; far, move; fall, nor; hfer; oil. 


OCT 4 1900 


i ao Index, etc. 

Tiresias, ti-re'si-as. A famous prophet of Thebes. 

Tityus, tit'i-us. A wicked giant. 

Trinacria, tri-na'kri-a. The three-cornered land. Sicily. 

Trojans, tro'janz. 

Troy, troi. A famous city of Phrygia, the richest in the universe, besieged by the 
Greeks for ten years. 

Tyndarus, tin'da-rus. Father of Castor, Clytemnestra, and Helen. 

Ulysses, u-lis'ez. King of the isle of Ithaca. Son of Laertes. 

Zacynthus, za-kin'thus. An island in the Ionian Sea. 

Zetheus, ze'thus. 

Zeus, zus. 

fat, met, pin, not, tub; fate, mete, pine, note, mute; far, move; fall, nor; her; oil. 




Heath’s Home and School Classics. 


THE STORY BOOK SERIES (Illustrated). 

T « ese *’ ooks are suited for the reading of children up to the age of 
10 or 12 years, and may be used as supplementary reading books in 
the earlier half of the School Course. 

Aiken and Barbauld’s Eyes, and No Eyes, and other Stories, Edited 
by Professor M. V. O’Shea . . . . io cents. 

Browne’s The Wonderful Chair and the Tales it Told. Part I. 

Edited by M. V. O’Shea . . . . i 0 cents. 

Browne’s The Wonderful Chair. Part II io cents. 

Crib and Fly : A Tale of Two Terriers. Ed. by C. F. Dole, io cents. 
Edgeworth’s Waste Not, Want Not. Edited by M. V. O’Shea. 
Ewing’s Jackanapes. By Mrs. Ewing. Ed. by W. P. Trent, io cents. 
Ewing’s The Story of a Short Life. By Mrs. Ewing. Edited by 

Thomas M. Balliet ' io cents. 

Goody Two Shoes. Attributed to Goldsmith, Ed. by C Welsh. 

Illust. after the original edit, by M. L. Peabody io cents. 

Ingelow’s Three Fairy Stories. By Jean Ingelow, Edited by. 

C. F. Dole . . . . . ^ io cents. 

Mother Goose ; A Book of Nursery Rhymes, arranged by C. Welsh. 

An entirely new presentation of the Mother Goose Rhymes in four divisions 
of mother play, mother stories, child play and child stories, arranged in the 
order of the development of the intellectual powers of the child. 

Mulock’s The Little Lame Prince. By Dinah Maria Mulock, 
Preface by Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, 15 cents. 
Munchausen ; Tales from the Travels of Baron Munchausen. Edited 
by Edward Everett Hale. 

Perrault’s The Tales of Mother Goose, as first collected by Charles 
Perrault. Edited by M. V. O’Shea. . 

Ruskin’s The King of the Golden River. By John Ruskin. Edited 

by M. V. O’Shea 10 cents. 

Segur’s The Story of a Donkey. By Madame de Segur. Trans- 
lated by C. Welsh. Edited by C. F. Dole. . 10 cents. 

Six Nursery Classics. Edited by M. V, O’Shea 10 cents. 

Thackeray’s The Rose and the Ring. By W. M. Thackeray. 

Edited by Edward Everett Hale. 

Trimmer’s The History of the Robins. By Mrs. Trimmer. Edited 
by Edward Everett Hale .... 10 cents. 


D* C HEATH & CCX, Publishers, Boston, U* S, A. 





